


The Atoners

by copper_dust



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Melancholy, Post-Sirius Black's Prank on Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copper_dust/pseuds/copper_dust
Summary: Two characters negotiate terms in the wee hours of the night, never to meet again: a father still paying for a single, life-altering mistake, and an alienated teenage boy, on the verge of making his own. When Lyall Lupin makes a personal appeal on behalf of his son, Severus Snape wants more than gratitude in exchange for his silence.A story about the conversation that—almost—redeemed them both.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Severus Snape, James Potter & Severus Snape, Lyall Lupin & Severus Snape
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32
Collections: Two Ships Passing in the Night





	1. Twin Fires

_In my little town_

_I never meant nothing,_ _I was just my father's son_

_Saving my money_

_Dreaming of glory_

_Twitching like a finger on the trigger of a gun_

-Paul Simon

* * *

When their eyes met, Severus was jolted by his own mirror reflection. Potter's terror swam on the surface of his glasses, the rectangles of moonlight flashing in the darkness like a lighthouse. It was the first time their paths had ever crossed as equals, and though neither knew it, it would be the last such time in this world. Years later, when Severus recalled this moment, it was usually during those dark, private hours when even witches and wizards locked their shutters tight and made anxious compromises with whatever lurked behind the silhouettes of furniture. It wasn't something he chose to revisit, but a memory that visited of its own volition. After several seconds the image would fade, Potter's uplifted brows and the twin flashes of moonlight disappearing into his present reality. The forest became Severus's dark bedroom, the branches of the Willow his towering stack of term papers, and James Potter, merely the bones in his grave.

* * *

Severus knew, even before his skinny arm was released from Potter's iron grip, that after all was said and done, even the events of that horrid night would not allow consequences to touch the precious skins of Potter and Black, or even that half-witted, pathetic imitator of theirs. He was well aware that the attractive, the rich and the popular always got off the hook for everything; that no crime was too bloody to paper over, no victim to loud to hush up with threats or money, or both. Of course, things were about to change—and the old wizarding rich and complacent were about to get their comeuppance—but as yet, the world was unfair and that was that. But as Severus's heartbeat gradually slowed from its manic thumping to a more manageable pace, and the moon blinked at him between branches overhead, he stood to reason that finally— _finally—_ there was a decent chance that at least one of his tormentors was really in for it, this time. He would be facing expulsion and public recognition of his true nature, if not jail time. That it couldn't have been Potter himself, or at least Black whose arrogant smirk was about undergo permanent removal was a disappointment; but Severus was accustomed to disappointments, and he had few such meaningful triumphs as this one.

There was also a certain satisfaction in knowing that he, at sixteen years of age, had just faced the scariest thing he ever would, that he'd survived, and that justice would be both imminent and sweet. There was no way Lupin could get out of this one. Even the headmaster would have to admit that he could not possibly allow such a creature on school grounds, around other children. And even if Severus received some punishment, meted out unjustly for the misdeeds of others—it would be worth it this time. How could polishing trophies or marking first-year quizzes ruin the sweet satisfaction of true vengeance?

Potter stopped walking, all of a sudden, to wipe his glasses across his bloody robes, forcing Severus to walk into him. He was almost too angry to curse. Almost.

"ARE YOU AN EFFING MORON, AS WELL AS AN ATTEMPT—"

"Shut up!" hissed Potter.

Severus laughed bitterly. "You think you can tell me what to do now, _now_ of all times?"

"Shut. Up." Potter's attempts to yell a whisper would have been comical under entirely different circumstances. As he and Snape left the copse of trees, the shadows lifted from Potter's face; one eye was blackened, and a trail of blood dripped from somewhere in his unkempt hair.

"You're limping," Severus commented more quietly. "Have you been _bitten?"_

"Just because I just saved your life doesn't mean I'm not about to kill you," whispered Potter, who was now trying self-consciously not to limp. "If you say one word about—"

"Lupin—"

"—about any of this before we get to Dumbledore's office, I swear I will not hesitate."

As if Potter had ever hesitated before, as if he had ever seen a line he even considered not daring to cross. It was too much, thought Severus. The mixture of emotions inside him was reacting dangerously, threatening to bubble over. He had never been very good at regulating his emotions—his main mechanism for coping with unpleasant feelings was processing them into cold fury—but the events of that freezing night in February were this close to pushing him out of control. And if there was something Severus never lost, it was control.

It seemed the more quietly he spoke, the more infuriated Potter became.

"It must be awfully exciting," he murmured, "knowing that one of your lackeys could eat you alive."

"He's not a lackey," Potter hissed. "It's called friendship; you should try it."

But Severus _had_ tried it, to predictable results. One painfully wonderful year, and a few almost-satisfactory months and then even the rare moments of private joy petering out like the paycheques that arrived late, if ever, at his father's house.

"I don't put my trust in wild animals," said Severus softly. "You never know when they aren't _really_ tame."

Potter spun around but Severus dodged his fist with practiced skill.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" he murmured. "You really want to provoke me _now_?"

Potter was silent for a moment, as though actually using his brain to think. He was favouring his right leg; the right footprints he left in the snow were shallow, and the left ones deep. The boys reached the top of a gentle hill and spotted the lake in the distance, shrouded in dark fog. Several ghosts glowed blurrily, floating above the lake, their shining reflections trailing like the tentacles of jellyfish in the deep sea. It was almost mesmerizing. When Potter's head blocked the light, Severus had to restrain himself from cursing Potter into a deep coma.

As they approached the castle, the moonlight dissipated into the yellowish bars of light spilling from wand slits high up in the walls, glassless windows just wide enough to send a curse through to your enemies below. The people who designed these things, thought Severus, had something in common with him. They planned ahead.

"Do you know," said Potter softly, "what the lowest of the low is?"

"I'm pretty sure your friend Black demonstrated it tonight," snapped Severus.

Potter shook his head, almost sadly. "No," he said. "That was a mistake. A stupid mistake, but a mistake. It's what _you're_ doing—"

"I've never done anything to you!"

"No, you'd rather go after Remus, of all people. _Remus_. That's the lowest of the low. You can't even admit it, because you know it's wrong—"

"That's bloody rich coming from you," said Severus. "Right and wrong. I suppose you've got a monopoly on that, being a Gryffindor? Valour. Chivalry and _valour_." He spat the last word down into the snow. "I suppose valour is four against one and a head start. Or is that courage? I forgot."

Potter sighed heavily, as though he were the most put-upon _dauphin_ in the world, owed everything and, so far, only granted _almost_ everything. "You don't understand anything," he said. "I can't even make you understand, because you're incapable of understanding. I literally can't explain the concept of human friendship to you. It's something normal people get _without_ having to be taught."

"Careful now," warned Severus, "your ego might not fit under the arch."

They passed through an opening in the battlements. The world was momentarily drenched in shadow. The mud turned to cobblestones. Severus wiped a hand across his forehead; he hadn't realized it was wet with cold sweat. His lank hair was freezing into place.

Potter reached the heavy wooden door first, but before grasping the iron ring handle, he spun around to look Severus in the eye.

"Look," he began. He ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous tic.

"Stop blocking the door."

"I'm going to go to Dumbledore—I think he ought to know what happened—what you saw, or thought you saw—"

"I know exactly what I saw!" Snape nearly shouted. "You think Dumbledore's going to give you a free pass this time? That's attempted murder, reckless endangerment —

"If you'd listen for one _second_ , instead of running your mouth when you have no idea what you're talking about—" Potter was now manically rumpling his hair, which was standing almost on end.

"I have an idea," Snape uttered coldly. "My idea is that Remus Lupin is a werewolf, that I can prove it, and that he, you, Black and Peter Pitiful are conspiring to allow him to run rampage at the full moon, able to attack anyone and anything he wishes. I have—"

His voice suddenly cut out, though his mouth was still moving. As though in a nightmare, he could not even scream.

"I told you," said Potter. "I told you to shut your greasy mouth and listen, for once."

Snape reached for his wand, only to feel it fly through his fingers and land in the silhouette of James Potter's hand. Potter slashed his own wand through the air and Severus was paralyzed, upright but unable to move. Before him, Potter was backlit by the torches affixed the to castle's entrance, but Snape could easily imagine the smug smirk on his face. Straining mentally against his enchanted bonds, Snape struggled to move even his eyelids.

"This is what's going to happen," said Potter, very quietly. "We will go upstairs to Dumbledore's office. You will not make a scene. You will be silent until we meet with Dumbledore. We will tell him what happened— _both_ of us. And whatever happens—"

At this, Potter's voice faltered for a moment. _So he doesn't know exactly how the headmaster will react. It's a gambit_ , deduced Snape.

"Whatever happens is in Dumbledore's hands," Potter finished. He paused to think, and then said, "I'm going to give you back your wand in a minute." Potter kicked at a chunk of ice at his feet, then delicately drew his weakened foot against the snow in the manner of a deer pawing at the ground. He stepped back and a faint ray of light lit up his face, cast from the flaming torches affixed next to the castle doors. "I guess if you've got even a tiny scrap of conscience, you'll realize that I just saved your life. Maybe that's worth something to you." He sighed. "Probably not, though."

Potter muttered, " _Finite incantatem_ ," and tossed Snape's wand back at him. He made sure to under-throw so that the wand fell a foot short of Snape, who, now unbound, was forced to kneel down in the darkness and feel through the snow for his wand. When he grasped it with numb fingers, he followed Potter to the enormous oak door. It took both of them to push the door open, their furious strength combined for perhaps the only time in their lives. Inside, the stone hallway was dark, but for slow-burning torches. The rhythmic drip-drip-dripping of wax onto a pool on the floor answered Potter's heaving, anxious breaths.

The boys continued through empty halls until they reached the magnificent staircase that lead, simultaneously, to the second, fourth and seventh floors, as well as to the dungeons (only on Fridays, though). A crooked presence stepped out of the shadows, dangling a lantern like a policeman's baton.

"Well, well, well," said Argus Filch. "What have we here? It's after midnight, gentlemen."

"I'm going to the Headmaster," spat Severus. "I want to report a crime."

"There aren't no appointments with the Headmaster tonight," said Filch, grinning with malice. "He's busy. And not with you lot, neither."

"It's urgent," said Potter. "Please."

"I don't see blood," replied Filch, in a sing-song tone.

"Are you sure about that?" said Potter, and he stepped into the amber circle of lantern light. The flickering candle illuminated Potter's stained robes and the red stream trickling from somewhere beneath his hair.

Filch's eyes went wide. He grabbed Potter's shoulder and pulled him closer, to take a better look.

"What the devil—?"

"Not quite, but close," said Severus. "He was rather furrier—"

"We're going to Dumbledore's office," repeated Potter, wrenching his shoulder out from Filch's ungentle grasp and dashing up the stairs as quickly as his damaged leg allowed him.

"I'll be seeing your heads of house, don't you doubt it!" called Filch. "No one gets away with that kind of trouble at this hour in _my_ school! Consider yourselves warned!"

Severus followed Potter up the steps, waiting until the staircase had swung around and deposited them onto a seventh-floor landing before muttering, "His school, my arse."

Up on the seventh floor, Potter and Severus followed a well-trodden path to Dumbledore's office, not speaking, but not quite ignoring one another either. Potter's teeth were chattering audibly. He was shivering and his shoulders trembled. He left a trail of blood behind him for Severus to smear across the stone floor with his only good pair of shoes.

"Not so brave, are we now?" murmured Severus. He delighted in this moment—just him and Potter, seriously injured and terrified of repercussions, the weight of his and his friends' futures in Severus's hands. Maybe he would never get another chance to win at anything so satisfying.

"I hate you," whispered Potter, almost to himself. His voice sounded weird, thick. "I hate everything about you. I wish I never saved you. I regret it already." 

Severus was tempted to hex Potter half to death, right then and there, but Dumbledore's office was so close. He wouldn't give up his chance at long-term revenge just for a briefly satisfying bout of justifiable violence, even though his wand hand was twitching like a racehorse at the gates. Down the long corridor they limped and shuffled, the painted eyes of various portraits tracking them like a spotlight. Severus wondered how exactly they were going to get into Dumbledore's office when he knew it must be magically locked in some way or another, but then he saw the silhouette of a tall figure with a crooked witch's hat against the candelabra at the end of the hall. She was walking briskly, with purpose, as though it were nine in the morning, rather than half past one in the morning.

"Damn it," whispered Potter under his breath. Severus laughed cruelly, for Potter's benefit, but inside, he was cursing as well. Minerva McGonagall would not be so generous with either of them for being out of bed this late, and while Potter was certain to get in trouble, McGonagall was not entirely fond of Severus either—and she was hopelessly biased towards Gryffindors.

The silhouette paused and then sped up; she had seen them. Severus rushed to meet her before Potter could; Potter tried to speed up, but he couldn't limp any faster.

"Professor! Professor McGonagall, I think you'd be interested to know—" began Severus defensively, but Potter, as usual, interrupted.

"Whatever he says, it's a lie," shouted Potter hoarsely, from several paces back. "I'm going to explain the whole thing—"

"It's Remus Lupin, he's in on it too—" yelped Severus.

"You shut your mouth about—"

"You'll both be quiet at once if you know what's best!" said McGonagall, her voice steely and authoritative. " _Once again_ , I am not pleased to see either of you here in the wee hours of the morning. And Potter"—McGonagall fixed him with a deathly serious glare—"you of all people should know that tonight is _not_ the night to make trouble." She stood with her hands on her hips before a giant, carved gryffon. The flaming torches illuminated her tartan dressing gown, and the outline of a wand pressed into her inside breast pocket.

"It wasn't my choice," said Potter. "I just saved his damn life, not that he cares—"

"Potter tried to kill me," said Severus, "as did his _accomplices._ So let's get that out of the way first."

"Silence, both of you!" she ordered. Severus wasn't sure if she had just cast a wordless, wandless spell, or simply the authority of her voice was enough to utterly remove his ability to speak. "The headmaster's office. Now. No dillydallying."

"Professor," pleaded James Potter, as he limped closer to her. "You've got to hear me out—"

"Goodness!" she exclaimed, as Potter's blood-streaked face came into the light of the torch. "Potter. How badly are you hurt?" She reached towards him and brushed his hair away from his forehead in a maternal gesture that made Severus want to scream.

"It's not that bad—not for me," began Potter, once again making sure to cast himself in a hero's light. "But Remus is in a bad way." _The benevolent saviour of Gryffindor, without a care in the world for his own well-being, only out to save a friend_ , though Severus. _And surely, McGonagall will buy it, if only because he's her star chaser and she worships Quidditch idiots over all else._

" _Remus_ very nearly murdered me," said Severus coldly. "He only got what was coming to him."

"Can you get to the hospital wing yourself?" asked McGonagall, ignoring Severus entirely. "I'll wake Madame Pomfrey—"

"No," insisted Potter. "I have to speak to Professor Dumbledore. He has to see if Remus is alright first."

McGonagall shook her head, twin fires reflecting off her tiny rectangular glasses. "There is nothing we can do for him now, Potter."

"Remus Lupin is a werewolf!" shouted Snape, pushing Potter away from McGonagall. Potter stumbled back onto his bad leg and grunted in pain. "He's a bloodthirsty monster, and he's out tearing apart—"

At that, McGonagall did something Severus never would have expected. She clapped her own cold, veiny hand overtop of Severus's mouth to muffle his screams.

(Severus couldn't remember the last time a female had touched him.)

She leaned in quite close to his face and he tried to push her away, his hands on her tartan-covered shoulders. She was stronger than he thought.

"Go into the headmaster's office at once," whispered McGonagall sternly. "Go, at once!" She tapped her wand onto the gryffon, and whispered "Peppermint!" to the statue, which shifted away from the doorway with a heavy, wooden scraping sound.

Severus opened the unlocked door. Before him was a spiral staircase, slowing moving upwards like a Muggle escalator. He stepped onto the first step, looking behind him for Potter, who was huddled with McGonagall. The blood on his forehead looked like war paint.

"You'll pay for this," hissed Severus, as the stairs transported him upwards. "Don't think you won't."

"Watch your mouth, young man," said McGonagall, before she disappeared from sight. The stone gryffon moved back into place before the doorway with a bass-clef grinding sound like a piano's lowest key.


	2. Draught 18

Pounding heart; heavy breathing; cold sweat smelling sour. The same dream, again. He was cold, and Summoned a second blanket from a pile of laundry on the pouf carré. Professor Snape's dormitory room looked opulent, with its carved four-poster bed and lacquered mahogany writing desk, but it was cold and perfunctory. The sheets were rough, and the mattress old and stiff. Once, the professor had woken on a brumal January morning to find that his leftover mug of tea was coated in a thin layer of ice. They were only living quarters; Hogwarts was not, and would never be his home. A thousand years ago, he had moved in with his half-empty trunk and a patched knapsack of pilfered trading cards, expecting a palace. But Hogwarts was a castle, a defensive fortress of medieval austerity. A fortress is meant to keep out and a prison is meant to keep in, but Severus Snape was master of the dungeons, a prison within the fortress. He had never really been let in; he would never be let out.

***

The fireplace crackled and hissed, and a log collapsed just as Severus stepped into the Headmaster's large, circular office. He heard a high-pitched, feminine giggle, and whirled around, only to see an oil painting of a woman very obviously pretending to sleep. The room smelled earthy, but sweet, like coffee and Irish whiskey.

"Severus," said the Headmaster warmly. Severus turned to see Professor Dumbledore sitting at a large and cluttered desk in fine, midnight blue satin robes. "I must say, I wasn't expecting your company tonight." He was smiling serenely.

Severus must have looked surprised, for Dumbledore added, "Some teachers find it surprising that I know all of my students' names. In my view, it is a moral imperative for any headmaster. Or headmistress."

He was thrown off by Dumbledore's comment, and briefly forgot why he was in the Headmaster's office in the first place. Then, the events of that night returned to Severus like a crushing wave, and he dashed over to the Headmaster's desk, desperate for justice in any form.

"Sir, I know it sounds mad and you might not believe me—"

"Madness isn't always inaccurate, given the situation," said Professor Dumbledore."

"—but there's a werewolf on the campus, there's a—Remus Lupin is a werewolf, and his friends are in on it, and Sirius Black tried to kill me but then James Potter got cold feet but they all knew about it—"

"Slow is smooth," said Professor Dumbledore,"and smooth is fast." He stroked his beard like a sleepy grey cat. "Now, why don't you tell me what happened this evening?"

"It's an _emergency_!" erupted Severus. "Remus Lupin—he's a bloody werewolf! They've all been covering for him! Do you hear me?" he cried, inadvertently gripping the edge of the desk like a lifeline.

"Yes," replied Dumbledore simply, "though probably at a lesser volume than I would have fifty or sixty years ago."

"Lupin's a werewolf!" he repeated, hysterical.

"Yes," replied the Headmaster calmly. "He is."

"He's a—" Severus froze in place. There was a twinkle in Dumbledore's eye, an infuriatingly knowing twinkle. An image of Potter's knowing hazel eyes flashed before him; _Dumbledore's office_ , he had insisted, refusing to speak about their ordeal until the pair made it upstairs. _Dumbledore's office_ sang the little voice in his head. _You're a fool, Severus. You've been had. Those Gryffindor psychopaths are completely convinced of their untouchability because—_

"You knew it," whispered Severus. His hands dropped to his sides, heavy as lead.

"That's correct," said the Headmaster simply. "What I don't know is how you ended up in danger given the extensive precautions that were taken." Dumbledore rested his wrists on the desk, the tips of his fingers pressing together, forming a tent. "Do you care to enlighten me?"

Severus felt cold. His willed himself to stop trembling, but his fingers quivered by this thighs. "You—you allowed that boy—that _monster_ —into _this_ school?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

"I would prefer it if you would use Remus Lupin's proper name," said Dumbledore. "And yes. I allowed him to attend Hogwarts, as I do all young British wizards and witches. It's my duty as Headmaster." He opened a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a sheaf of parchment and a long, magenta quill that looked as though it had been clipped from the wing of a gigantic tropical bird. "I hope you don't mind if I take a few notes."

Snape stared emptily at the parchment, allowing the blank sheet to dull his eyes. It was too hard to look at the Headmaster's face. His fingers rolled into blanched white fists.

Of its own accord, the quill floated up and then dipped itself into a fountain of ink.

"Now, why don't you start at the beginning?" asked Dumbledore. "I am very curious as to how you came to find Remus Lupin on a night like this."

***

Severus Snape maintained a library in the office next door to his classroom. He also stored several volumes of what he believed to be the most important works of magical theory and practice in the Slytherin common room, for shared used by his students. Whether or not any of the spoiled children he was tasked with looking after actually perused these priceless (though second-hand) books, Professor Snape did not know, but they remained on the common room shelves... just in the event that, one day, Snape would oversee a student actually interested in learning. In his private office, Professor Snape kept the more valuable tomes, as well as those with magical content deemed not appropriate for the general student population.

Of his many books on potioneering, the professor's favourite had to be a small paperback, simply titled _Experiments, 1911_. It was the posthumously published notebook of the famed Indian potioneer mononymously known as Shivani. Whether that was her actual name or not was irrelevant; the mysterious witch (or wizard) had lived a private, disciplined life of study, first as a research fellow at the most prestigious magical academy in India, and then as scholar-in-residence at a magical Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Few European wizards knew of her work; Snape had only discovered her writing during a brief sojourn to the Far East in his mid-twenties, back before he owned a Pensieve. Without a stone dish to contain what he could not forget, Snape had sought solace in a twenty-day silent magical retreat at Riwoche Monastery, where wizards and novices ate and drank and slept on the stone floor, using wands only during hours of study and wordless magical practice. The original book by Shivani was not in English, but he had paid an impoverished graduate student at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to translate it upon his return to London. Shivani's potions were simple and unfragmented; unlike the awkward, 25-ingredient British recipes tweaked and addled by decades of wizards looking for long-lasting effects, flashy transformations and unbelievably strong enchantments, Shivani had crafted her recipes entirely on her own. Some used entirely non-magical herbs. Others required no wandwork at all. Her guidance was gentle; sometimes, she offered brief commentary on the purpose of a certain ingredient. At other times, a mere list of ingredients and brewing time were included; these recipes had almost certainly been gleaned from Shivani's personal notebook, which had not been intended for publication.

When Snape awoke in the night, troubled by the sticky viscera of memories, dreams and visions, he prepared his favourite of Shivani's potions from memory. The cauldron sat on his work desk. No flame was required. Snape worked in the darkness, only the glowing tip of his wand illuminating the knife, the sachet and the spoon before him. By sunrise, when the elves came by to light fires and warm the classrooms, they would find him sitting in silence, eyes closed, on the floor of his office. They knew not to disturb him.

***

When the door flung open and hit the wall with a _bang!_ , Severus knew it cold only be Potter. His head was bandaged, and a pinkish stain was visible along his hairline. Professor McGonagall followed him into the room. Her mouth was a thin, straight line, nearly white from tension.

"Headmaster," said Professor McGonagall, "I've just accompanied Mr. Potter to see Madame Pomfrey. His injuries are not so severe as I'd worried. I've also given Poppy word that she ought to check on Remus as soon as possible."

 _Unfortunately_ , thought Severus.

"Thank you, Minerva," said the Headmaster. He flicked his wand and three chairs appeared in midair, before falling to the floor with a loud _clunk_. Two were straight-backed wooden chairs with padded seats, while the third was a velvety green wing-backed armchair. Professor McGonagall sank down into the armchair, eyeing Severus and Potter and nodding towards the simple chairs. Severus and Potter reluctantly sat down, each scooting as far away as possible from the other.

"Professor Dumbledore, sir," began Potter, "I want to tell you what happened."

"He knows exactly what happened—" began Severus. 

"Rubbish," snapped Potter. "Look, I know Sniv— _Severus_ has probably given you _his_ version—"

"That's well enough, Potter!" chastised McGonagall. 

"Now then," said Dumbledore, smiling serenely. "I had hoped we could work out this—dare I say— _snafu_ in a civilized manner. Mr. Snape has indeed informed me of his story this evening—" 

"He's lying!" interrupted James, sounded panicked. "What happened, it's more complicated—he's just got it in for Remus—" 

"Potter, that's _enough!"_ said McGonagall, who then turned to Severus so quickly she almost gave him whiplash. "And Snape—if I see your wand out, in the Headmaster's office no less, you will be polishing in the trophy room until your graduation day." 

Severus coolly slid his wand back into his robes, scowling. 

"Bloody Slytherins," muttered Potter, just quietly enough for Severus to hear. 

"Gentlemen," said Dumbledore, "there is a medieval tradition in this country named after one of my favourite breakfast foods." 

_Bloody hell_ , thought Severus, _not another one of_ these _stories. And it's especially not funny when there's a werewolf running around the campus._

"Toast," murmured Potter. 

"Quite right," said Dumbledore, his blue eyes twinkling like lucky stars. "Many, many years ago, before any of us in this room were born—barring portraits, of course—when two rival parties would meet up to feast and negotiate, each person at the feast would tip their goblet against another's, spilling some of their wine into one another's goblets, until each guest's wine was fully mixed with the wine of each other guest, and that of the host."

Even McGonagall was looking at the Headmaster as though he were off his rocker. 

"The purpose of this activity was to enhance trust—by ensuring that no person's wine could be poisoned without poisoning everyone at the feast." 

"But what has this got to do—" began Severus. 

"Well, I'm getting to that," said Dumbledore, "but it's a very wise question. Now, these days, we only clink our goblets together, thus negating that most practical reason for the 'toast,' but the custom remains. In our present situation, there is no wine (sadly), and no goblets, but we are bringing together _rival parties_ , if you'll forgive my rather crude language, and certainly, there seems to be some need for negotiation. 

"He wants Remus dead," said Potter quietly. "There's no negotiating."

"It's not him I want dead," hissed Snape.

Dumbledore looked from Severus to Potter, that infuriatingly opaque smile lighting up his face like the buzzing storefront signs Severus had glanced in a dodgy alleyway of Spinner's End. "I'd like your wands, please, gentlemen."

 _I think the hell not_ , thought Severus, but he found his wand sailing out of his robes and through the air, into Dumbledore's outstretched hand anyways. Potter's wand arced similarly. When the Headmaster had caught both wands, he clicked them together.

"A kind of toast," said Dumbledore, "to the precious bonds of mutual enmity." He tucked the two wands into a drawer in his desk. 

"They're boys, Albus," said McGonagall sharply, "not enemies." 

"That's the spirit," said Dumbledore. He pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up, satiny robes swishing against the floor. "Gentlemen," he said, as he approached the glowing fireplace, "I think you both understand the very seriousness of the matters we have to discuss tonight." From the mantle, he picked up a porcelain jug painted with frou-frou scenes of milky-skinned ladies on swings, and removed a pink of sparkling green powder. "While I would prefer to keep our discussions as private as possible, I would understand it if you would prefer to have your Head of House present, Severus."

 _"No,_ " said Severus quickly. "I wouldn't." Bloody Slughorn couldn't be counted on to take a fellow Slytherin's side—not when Snape was a half-blood and Potter, a rising Quidditch star, never mind the fact that Sirius Black, whose fault this all was, practically came from pureblood Slytherin royalty.

"Excellent," said the Headmaster. "In that case, I think matters can be kept between us—and Mr. Black, of course."

At the sound of Black's name, Potter leaned forward quickly.

"Professor Dumbledore, you've got to understand it was a mistake. He didn't mean to—" 

"To kill me?" said Severus coldly. "I think he did."

"He didn't think you'd actually do it!" shouted Potter, sounding manic. "He was just being a—he was making a joke, he didn't—"

"He tried to get Lupin to do his dirty work," said Severus. "Some friend."

"What would you know about friends, it's not like you've got any," spat Potter. His hideous horn-rimmed glasses had slipped down his nose, and Severus noticed two pink spots where the nose pads had pressed against it. A deep crease had formed between Potter's brows, and his upper lip was curled in an expression of disgust mirroring the one on Severus's own face.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor!" cut in McGongaall. "And I'm willing to take off more. And as for you, Mr. Snape, I am just as willing to dock from your house as from my own."

"That's quite enough, boys," said Dumbledore. This time, his voice was quieter, more authoritative; Severus hardly recognized it. "I will be back momentarily with Mr. Black. In the meantime, I think Masters Potter and Snape had best be separated. Professor McGonagall, you may escort Mr. Snape into my private drawing room. Mr. Potter can remain in my office for the time being."

"Of course." 

"And I think some hot cocoa is in order for all parties."

"Cocoa?" said McGonagall. "Albus, I'm not—"

"Cocoa," he replied, raising two white eyebrows. "There's never been a problem not best solved in the presence of a warm cup of hot cocoa. See that a house elf brings up a tray." And with that, he threw the sparkling powder into the fire, which flared up in flames of bright green. The Headmaster stepped into the fireplace, ducking his head beneath the mantle. "Gryffindor common room," he announced. Then he was gone, and the flames were yellow and orange once again.

When McGonagall saw that he was gone, she said, "Snape. Follow me."

Severus rose from his conjured chair; the moment he stood upright, it disappeared into thin air. He followed her through the airy ovular office, past a bookshelf filled not with books, but strange, folded papery figurines, some of which slowly expanded and contracted, like a heaving diaphragm. Other figures occasional ruffled in an imperceptible breeze. In a golden cage, a tiny, wizened birdish-looking thing slept on a perch. Ashes drifted down from the shriveled bird's burnt wings. 

Severus reached a stretch of wood panelling covered by two paintings of former headmasters, both of whom were pretending to snore. McGonagall lightly tapped on the painted nose of the elder one, a dusty-looking wizard with an Elizabethan ruff, and he promptly brandished a wand and seemed to tap it on the very frame of his painting. Three dark cracks appeared in the wall, spreading until they joined at right angels, forming the outline of a door. When McGonagall touched the wall, the door swung open, and Severus followed her inside.

The drawing room was much dimmer then Dumbledore's office, and more traditionally decorated as well. There was a fireplace lined with marble blocks and guarded by an ornate wrought-iron grate; inside, a low fire smoldered. Heavy velvet curtains hung open against an arched window with diamond-patterned leading. Through the glass, Severus glimpsed a moon so full it looked ready to spill over.

"Incendio," muttered Professor McGonagall, lighting an oil lamp. She gestured stiffly towards a grey silk armchair, but Severus paused.

"Do I have to?" he asked.

"You can stand if you prefer," she said, sounding irritable. 

"I meant, do I have to stay in the room," said Severus. "Because I'd prefer to go back to my own common room." 

"It's what Professor Dumbledore wants," said McGonagall, as if that settled the matter. 

"Does that make it mandatory?"  
"I should think so," said McGonagall, giving Severus a severe look. She tightened the tie in her dressing gown. "After whatever has happened tonight, I'm certain Professor Dumbledore will want to speak with you before he releases you back to your House."

Severus, who felt quite a bit bolder when he wasn't within earshot of the Headmaster, replied, "I expect he'll have some way to justify Black and Potter's actions, then."

"From what I've heard, Potter's the reason you're standing here, and I'd be more careful with that tone when speaking to a teacher," said McGonagall sharply. "I'm stepping out. The headmaster will be in to speak with you shortly." She headed back to the doorway, when Severus couldn't help himself. 

"Aren't you going to bring that hot cocoa?" he said slyly. 

"That's a house elf's job," scoffed McGonagall. "And five points from Slytherin for disrespect. You'd never say such a thing to a male teacher."

 _It was worth every last point_ , though Severus. Bloody hypocrites, all of them. McGonagall, who went easy on Black and Potter and still pretended not to; Dumbledore, who preached against the Dark Arts and invited werewolves to frolick freely on campus during a full moon; and most importantly, Potter. _Potter_. Even his name sounded like a toilet bowl. Black was as bad, and Severus despised him, but at least Black had it coming; the rumours were that he was _this_ close to getting disowned, that the Black family had it in for him. And it served him right. These rich little princes from Sacred Twenty-Eight families, with house elves to tidy their mess and mummies and daddies offering pocket money and polished broomsticks, every trunk overflowing with hand-tailored robes and sweets from Honeydukes—they were going to get their comeuppance, but it couldn't come fast enough. Mulciber spoke of the New Dawn, and Severus knew it was coming, but he wished it came sooner. He didn't want to graduate alongside Potter and Black (and their cronies) in matching wizard hat and robes; he wanted the little princes out on the Muggle street, where they belonged. 

Severus slid down in his chair and continued to sulk for the better part of an hour. A house elf quietly Apparated into the drawing room to leave a boat-sized cup of hot cocoa and marshmallows on the end table, but Severus ignored it, and the little elf Disapparated in silence. When he finally touched the mug, it had gone cold, and Severus wasn't thirsty. He watched the fiery sheets of red and orange and blue hugging the embers, smoke trickling upward in a mesmerizing, meandering cyclone. He heard a clock on the marble mantle striking one in the morning, and somehow, he was surprised it was still so early. When his eyelids felt heavy, he allowed them to close, and fell into a dreamless half-sleep, not quite unconscious or alert. Hypnogogic hallucinations played out across the backdrop of his eyelids, but Severus paid them no mind, for he was used to the frightening figures that emerged from the chambers of half-sleep.

He awoke when he heard muffled voices from Dumbledore's office. The magical door appeared once again, lines slicing through the stone wall to form a neat rectangle. Dumbledore pushed it open and stepped into the drawing room, his satin robes swishing against the floor. He was holding a teacup adorned with pink roses and a sleeping baby bunny nestled in a pile of leaves. Behind him stood another man, old enough to be a teacher but certainly not one of the Hogwarts professors Severus knew of. He stood two paces behind Dumbledore, in the shadows, but Severus noticed the firelight reflecting off his polished leather dress shoes.

"I apologize for the wait," said Professor Dumbledore, and he set his teacup down on the end table, next to Severus's abandoned cocoa. "It's been a—shall we say—eventful night for us all."

Severus wiped the sleep from his eyes and shuffled upwards into a upright position in his chair. He glanced at the clock.

"Half past two," said Dumbledore. "Of course, you will be excused from classes today. Professor McGonagall has assured me that she will let the other teachers know—"

"Who's that?" said Severus, gesturing toward the man in the shadows, who stepped forward, somewhat hesitantly, at Severus's question. He wore a set of dark brown wizard's robes over a collared shirt and tie. In his left hand was a leather folio stuffed with papers. Severus could see the tip of his wand peeking out of his breast pocket, behind a silk handkerchief.

"This is Mr. Lyall Lupin," said Dumbledore. "He is Remus Lupin's father."

***

Draught 18

_for the procurement of peace when troubled by regret_

_Only to be prepared by the drinker herself._

Ingredients

a heavy heart

2 handfuls of fresh greens (any of: lettuce, parsley, celery, dandelion, kale or basil)

1 pitcher of water

1 sachet of green tea

single strand of unicorn hair

1 pinchful of crushed ivory

a sigh

Work in haste, or with great sluggishness. Chop fresh greens with a knife, while maintaining the heavy heart. Inhale and exhale with regularity. The tea is to be scattered before you on the ground. Smell it as it falls. Fill the cauldron with water. Imagine the snow this water once was. Taste it, by imagination. Kindling the flame of your heart without matches or wand, add the fresh greens to the cauldron. Stir clockwise once for each year since _it_ occurred, as time only moves in one direction. Stop stirring. When the last of the greens is no longer spinning, tie the thread of unicorn hair around your wrist and make a knot, just tight enough to notice. There will be a twinge. Add the pinchful of crushed ivory and watch it slowly sink down, down, down to the cauldron bottom. (Sigh). Sit cross-legged on the floor, and wait for the water to evaporate. When the potion is complete, gulp the fresh air around you as though it were the only medicine you'll ever need. It may take minutes or years.


	3. In Confidence

Severus said nothing. He had no interest in speaking with Lupin's father.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Mr. Lupin, may I introduce Severus Snape," he said.

Mr. Lupin nodded at Severus politely. When he spoke, Severus was jarred to hear that his accent was different from his son's; more nasal and English compared to Remus's lilting, unplace-able cadence.

"I, er—I regret the circumstances of our meeting, but—" Lupin glanced at the stone floor, and then back up at Severus. "Pleased to meet you," he said quickly. His fingers tightened around the folio.

Severus looked lazily from Lupin to Dumbledore, meeting the headmaster's piercing blue-eyed gaze with a chilling smirk. 

"Am I to assume," began Severus slowly, "that _he's_ been made aware of what his son did to me tonight _?"_

Dumbledore sighed, and sat down on a floral-patterned sofa opposite Severus's armchair. He flicked his wand in front of them, and a second chair appeared, identical to Severus's, in front of the fireplace. He nodded towards Lupin, who approached the new chair and sat down in a wooden motion. Lupin placed the folio on his lap, but would not let go of it.

"Mr. Lupin and I have spoken at length about the incident that occurred tonight," said Dumbledore, sounding uncharacteristically exhausted. "He's also spoken with James Potter, and with Sirius Black."

"Potter's a liar and so is Black," snapped Severus, turning to face Lupin. He was wearing round, tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles that irritated Severus because they reminded him of Potter. "I'm sure they've told you some half-baked story that makes it look like I'm at fault for being almost murdered."

"Severus," said Dumbledore softly, "I think you would be surprised to hear that that is not at all what Sirius Black and James Potter told Mr. Lupin and me."

Lupin swallowed. His eyes were downcast, never meeting Severus's gaze. A comma-shaped line furrowed his brows; there were creases on his forehead and laugh lines around his mouth. He looked a lot older than Severus's own father, though both men had significant amounts of grey hair.

"So what did they say?" said Severus, leaning forward. "Who'd they blame it on?"

Dumbledore looked to Lupin, as if to invite him to reply. Lupin, who looked uncertain, removed his handkerchief from his pocket and kneaded it in his hands as he spoke.

"It was, er, it was put to me that—that Sirius Black had told you to, er, to touch the knot on the Whomping Willow. And that he had led you to believe that this would—well, that it would lead to some kind of, er, discovery. About my son." Lupin looked up at Severus briefly. His eyes were an indecipherable colour in the dim firelight. "I was told that Sirius thought that it—that he didn't expect you to, er—to do that."

"Right," said Severus drily. "He only gave me explicit instructions, excepting the part where he neglected to mention that I'd be set upon by a raging _werewolf_."

It didn't escape Severus's attention that Lupin flinched at the world 'werewolf.' _So even Daddy's afraid of his little monster_ , he thought.

"I want you to know that Sirius Black was quite contrite," said Dumbledore coolly. "He takes complete responsibility for the incident, and he has agreed to write a letter of apology to you, as well as to Mr. Lupin, and Remus. And Sirius has committed to a program of consequences which Mr. Lupin, Professor McGonagall and I felt were appropriate to the severity of his actions." The headmaster fixed Severus with the sort of authoritative, unreadable look that made Severus feel as though his brains had been poured into a Pensieve and stirred around by a committee. "So, you see...we are taking this matter very seriously."

Lupin spoke up. "I would just like to say that I am—well, on behalf of my wife and I, that we were extremely upset to hear that you were put in danger, and immensely glad to see that you have come to no harm."

"I suppose _this_ is the definition of no harm, then" said Severus, pulling back his cloak and rolling up a sleeve to show Lupin a large area of his forearm where the skin had scraped clean off, leaving an oozing scab smeared with dirt.

Lupin stared at the arm, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He looked at Dumbledore, and said softly, "I was told the boy was unhurt."

"I didn't know you were injured," said Dumbledore. "Show me your arm please. Closer, now."

Severus cautiously approached Dumbledore, his injured arm outstretched. When Dumbledore reached for his wand, Severus shrunk back.

"Don't worry," said Dumbledore. "I only want some light. _Lumos_."

He brought the glowing tip of his wand near the bleeding scab; it looked violet in the circle of bluish wand light. Dumbledore leaned over and observed the wound silently. Severus could count every wrinkle in his forehead.

Severus knew it was only a mild flesh wound, but he wasn't going to let the old men off the hook so easily. Let them worry. Let them experience a fraction of what he had suffered in the hours past.

"Is it—?" whispered Lupin, whose hand was hovering near the wand in his pocket.

"Goodness, no," replied Dumbledore. "It looks to be a scrape, probably from the Willow. There is no indication of a curse wound."

Lupin exhaled heavily. "Are you quite certain?"

Dumbledore fixed Lupin with the sort of smile an adult might give to a small child who's woken from a nightmare.

"He would not be up and about, speaking with us, had he received the bite. That is a fact."

"Right. Yes. Of course," said Lupin, though he had gone very pale. "I'm sorry, this must be quite terrifying for you," he added, looking to Severus. "I am—well, as I said...quite devastated that all this happened."

Severus did not reply; he merely returned to his chair and sat down, curling his legs up next to him on the seat. He slumped forward, resting his head on a hand supported by the chair's arm.

"Severus," said the headmaster. "Mr. Lupin is speaking to you."

"I've nothing to say," he replied.

"I'm sure he's very tired," said Lupin. "Look at the time. Perhaps it would be best if, er, if he were to rest for the night...and we could speak again, in the morning."

"I wish it could be so," said Dumbledore gravely. "But I can't release Severus back to the Slytherin quarters until I know that the safety of _all_ my students is guaranteed. "

Severus fixed Dumbledore with a coal-black stare. "What does that mean?" he said.

"Ah," replied the headmaster. "I knew we would get to that."

"...and?"

"It means I must have your word, Severus, that you won't tell a soul—not a soul—that Remus Lupin is a werewolf."

Severus burst into raucous laughter. He was shaking so hard that he couldn't sit in his chair; he stood, and bent double, the laughter bursting out of him involuntarily, as though he had been hexed. When the tears had dripped down his cheeks and fallen into his cloak, and his ribs ached too much to continue convulsing, Severus finally stopped laughing. He had laughed so long and so hard that when he stopped, the room sounded silent as a vacuum-sealed chamber. Slowly, the soft crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind returned to his ears. He wiped his face with the corner of his cloak, and sat back down.

"Right then," said Severus, his mouth still contorted into a sick rictus grin. "Sorry, Headmaster. I suppose I wasn't supposed to laugh when _I'm_ the punch line of this sick joke. Anyways—" he paused to look directly at Lupin, whose mouth was shaped like a lower-case 'o'. "I hope you didn't come here thinking I _wouldn't_ make sure your kid was expelled."

Lupin swallowed. He scrunched up the handkerchief in his right hand, exposing a band of gold that glinted in the firelight. "I was—well, I would...."

"Severus," said Dumbledore. "This is an adult conversation. I know you understand the level of seriousness—"

"Seriousness?" spat Severus. "What about _Sirius_ Black, hm? When's he getting his expulsion papers? When he's getting his wand snapped?"

"Headmaster—" began Lupin tentatively.

Dumbledore shook his head. The light played across the curls of his beard, flickers of gold and crimson weaving in and out of the silver. "No one is getting expelled tonight," he said. "And no one's wand will be snapped."

"So what does it take then?" asked Severus, only half ironically. "What does Black have to do to get expelled? Kill me? He's already tried that, it's only good fortune he didn't succeed." He was trying to be sarcastic, but his tone was off; not dry, but dripping in slow-fermenting venom.

"To answer your question, Severus," replied the Headmaster calmly, "I hope never to find out. My role is to provide an education to all young wizards and witches. I will always look for an alternative to taking that education away, even if it means that there may be some...nontraditional arrangements."

"And we're very grateful," said Lupin quietly.

"That man's _nontraditional arrangement_ tried to murder me tonight," said Severus. He tried to look Lupin in the eye, but Lupin would not meet his gaze. He had opened the leather folio, and was staring down at a messy cluster of papers, some of which were bound with string.

"You will use his proper name in my presence," said Dumbledore coldly. "And Remus, as you know, does not have any control over his actions during the full moon."

"Professor Dumbledore, sir," began Lupin. "If I could—could just speak to the boy, myself."

"I don't want to talk to him," said Snape, leaning back in his chair and resting his head against the padded rest. "I want to sleep."

"Severus..." the headmaster began, but trailed off. He waited a beat, and then another, and then a whole minute had passed in silence, but for the quiet nighttime noises of crackling fire and whooshing wind.

"May I speak to him in confidence?" said Lupin quietly. "I think—it might be for the best."

"I'm not sure if that's wise, Mr. Lupin," said Dumbledore slowly.

"You don't have to talk like I'm not in the room," drawled Severus. "I can hear you," his eyes still closed.

"Please, Headmaster," said Lupin evenly. "I...I'm sure I owe him a more personal apology...at the very least."

Snape cracked open an eye. Dumbledore was leaning over towards Lupin, and the men were exchanging significant glances. The headmaster whispered something, and Lupin nodded, then whispered something in return.

Finally, Dumbledore leaned away from Lupin, and looked Severus in the eye

"Severus," began Dumbledore evenly, "Mr. Lupin is quite keen to speak with you privately. And though it wasn't what I intended when he arrived in my office tonight... I feel that I might owe it to you—and to Mr. Lupin—to grant him his request."

Severus opened his mouth, but Dumbledore continued.

"And I know that, as a young adult, nearly of age, you will honor that request."

Severus glared at Lupin, whose facial expression was of studied neutrality.

"One hour," muttered Severus. "No longer."

"I agree," said the headmaster." One hour should more than suffice." He rose from his seat, and approached the door. The moonlight rushed across his long, silvery hair like a waterfall.

"Thank you, Headmaster," said Lupin quietly.

"One moment please," said Dumbledore, as he stepped back into his office, leaving the door ajar. "And then I'll be out."

Severus stared at the door, wondering if the Headmaster was going to bring Potter and Black in, just to make things worse. He had just about made up his mind to storm out of the room on principle when Dumbledore returned, carrying a silver tray. On it was a pitcher of water and two empty glasses.

Dumbledore set the tray down on thin air. A handsomely carved coffee table materialized underneath the tray at the moment Dumbledore removed his hands from the handles. Severus noticed Lupin shrinking back in amazement at the perfectly timed wandless magic. Lupin glanced from Dumbledore to the coffee table and back again, obviously impressed.

There was a time when Severus would have observed this charming performance with a sense of wonder. That was the time of flying girls on swing sets, and crackling twigs, and the endless day lit evenings of high summer. It was the time when he thought magic made people different and better; when he thought they'd all be luminous and pure as the translucent lilies he had played at levitating, their petals opening and closing like the mouths of puppets. But now he only resented that Dumbledore cloaked these feats of magical intimidation in transparently childish whimsy.

"I always prefer to have a beverage ready, should I embark on a long conversation," explained Dumbledore. "I'll return in an hour, gentlemen. And Severus," he said pointedly, "please show Mr. Lupin just how brilliant and marvelous we know Slytherin House can be."

And he left the room, shutting the door behind them. Its outline disappeared, leaving Severus and Lupin in a room with no obvious means of escape.

* * *

He had never been a father or a husband, or even a brother, and he had no intention of becoming one. But it had still occurred to Professor Snape that, _if_ , in some hypothetical scenario, he were to have a child of his own, he would raise it differently.

 _Differently than who_? asked the inquisitive, feminine voice in his head. Her voice.

Than everyone. He wouldn't raise a child to be liar, or a manipulator, an egotist, a narcissist, a spoiled rich brat or—most importantly—a scrawny, untrusting urchin with a twisted father complex and a compulsion to risk anything of value in his life in hopes of winning a fleeting prize. In other words, Harry Potter. In other words, himself.

It wasn't normal to loathe a child this way, and he knew it. Professor Snape was many things, but he was neither stupid, nor entirely lacking in self-awareness. He knew that most people had a special fondness for children, and even those that didn't had, at most, a mild preference for not being around them. Furthermore, he even understood that Harry Potter wasn't the only skinny, under-groomed child to arrive at Hogwarts overexcited at the prospect of three square meals a day, nor was he the _most_ irritatingly precocious (that honour went to the bossy one with the frizzy hair) or the least obedient. Snape wasn't deaf to his colleagues (no matter what they thought), and he knew that the general impression around the staff room was that Potter was polite, congenial, curious, and even worse— _sweet_.

"I had Harry Potter in my first-year class today!" Flitckwick had exclaimed one September day in the staff room, while Charity Burbage passed around cups of stale coffee and slices of carrot cake. "What a charming boy. He's exactly as I imagined he would be."

"The new Gryffindor class is wonderful. I love teaching first-years," Sinistra had said, dreamily. "They're sweet. They ask the most wonderful questions."

Severus Snape did not love teaching first-years, nor did he find Harry Potter charming in the least. Potter was irritating. He was lazy but lucky, that horrid combination that had defined his father. Potter took advantage of the special treatment Dumbledore gave him. He even showed up to classes without doing any of the prior readings, and then acted put out when Professor Snape was frustrated with his academic inadequacy.

But those weren't the real reasons he disliked the eleven-year-old boy with the wide, owlish eyes and perpetually bewildered expression. And he knew perfectly well that Harry Potter was not his father. James had _never_ walked around with that question-mark facial expression, the one that reminded Severus Snape of a Muggle time-traveller hungrily searching for a newspaper to confirm the date. Hating James Potter was easy. Like breathing, or walking, or the little electric wave that ran through Snape when he picked up his wand, hatred for James Potter was a natural and even comfortable experience. With Harry, it was different: the hatred was a pulsing, throbbing, migraine, sometimes even bleeding over into his other emotions. It was painful. Whereas catching sight of James Potter by chance might have given Snape a rush of glee at the prospect of hexing his foe by surprise, a mere glimpse of Harry in the Great Hall, hoovering up his food, was physically painful to Snape. There was no joy in insulting him, no sick pleasure to be gained in one-upping him or humiliating before his peers, though the temptation to do so still arose now and then. Protecting him was shameful, but hurting him was deeply unsatisfying. What was _wrong_ with that child?

Harry was untouchable; a human Snitch slipping through the fingers of any adult, good or evil, who attempted to exert some form of control over him. Harry, who had survived the Dark Lord, who snuck around the castle grounds with his Invisibility Cloak on, always listening in and _almost_ getting caught. He was an impossible boy with no sense of his own mortality, let alone any awareness of how his great protectors suffered in order to shield him. How a child less than twelve years old could cause a hardened ex-Death Eater so much pain was beyond Snape. There was something just _unbearable_ about his presence. Harry's impossible, unfathomable innocence was like a hot knife in Snape's ribs; the mere fact that Harry knew nothing of the prophecy that would define him, nor of the dead bodies in his wake, needled Snape to no end.

The only comfort was in knowing that Harry despised him. That even the Untouchable Human Snitch was capable of hatred brought Professor Snape a few moments of peace, late at night. He lay in bed and stared up at the dusty canopy above him, and before he cleared his mind of thoughts to prepare for a dreamless slumber, Snape remembered a grimace Harry had made upon catching sight of him in the corridor before Potions. He had so resembled James Potter in that moment—nose scrunched up, upper lip curled, dark eyebrows furrowed—that for a brief second, Snape saw his nemesis alive and well, and his heart slowed into a rocking-chair rhythm, and the night settled around him, dark as a velvet robe.

* * *

Mr Lupin brought his chair only slightly forward, so half his face was lit up by the fire. He was still sitting mostly in shadow, and frankly, Severus preferred it that way.

"So," he said. "What do you want that Dumbledore can't hear about?"

"It isn't that way," said Mr. Lupin. He glanced at the clock before returning his gaze to Severus. "I only thought—it wasn't right, not to speak with you personally. I feel—very much responsible for what happened to you."

"I guess you are." Severus leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

An owl hooted somewhere in the night sky, its call answered by the rustling of wind-shaken trees. Severus waited until Lupin finally said something of interest.

"I've been told something of your, er, your relationship to my son. I...was sad to hear that there was some animosity." His voice was reedy, posh, and when he spoke, his upper lip hardly moved. The sort of man who paid for someone else to clean his dirty robes. It was funny; he hadn't taken Remus Lupin for one of them.

"I bet you've heard lots of things," said Severus.

"Only some." Lupin coughed into his handkerchief. "Some things of which I was rather disappointed to hear."

Severus frowned. "Is that your chivalrous Gryffindor idea of an apology?"

Lupin shook his head. "No," he said. "You know as well as I do that I cannot apologize on behalf of another. And certainly not when I don't know the whole story." His voice was more even, less timid than it had been in the presence of the Headmaster.

"Whatever you've _heard_ ," stressed Severus, "was a sanitized, bowdlerized version of what your son, and his little friends, have really been doing, for _five years_."

Lupin gazed into the fire. The half-moon depressions below his eyes were traced in amber firelight. "I believe there may be some truth to that," he said. "But I was not a Gryffindor."

It was a mark of how high inter-house tensions in the school had risen that Severus's animosity for the man dissipated somewhat upon hearing that Mr. Lupin was not a member of the scarlet-and-gold self-aggrandizement brigade.

"Which—"

"Ravenclaw," said Lupin to the flames. "But I ought to thank you. No one ever took me for a Gryffindor before." His voice was low and soft.

"It wasn't a compliment."

Lupin smiled. "It was like that when I was at Hogwarts too. The rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin was legendary." He leaned forward to pour himself a cup of water, and sipped it reverently, like wine. "And then we graduated, and..."

"It all disappeared like that." Severus was skeptical.

"Oh, no," Lupin shook his head. "We graduated and went out into the world and... found that there were more than four teams." He swallowed. "And you didn't get a hat to tell you which side to be on."

Severus found himself rolling into a ball on his chair, wrapping his arms around his folded legs. He rested his chin on one knee.

"I don't believe you." Severus's dark eyes glowered beneath thick, uneven brows. "You know which side you're on," he continued. "It isn't mine. And you want something from me."

"Yes, I do," replied Lupin. His hand moved to clutch the wrinkled handkerchief again, and then shrunk back just before making contact.

 _The man is no Occlumens_ , though Severus, who had begun practicing the art late at night in his dormitory, with a candle and a water-stained textbook. He had thought it might come in handy someday. Perhaps, it already had.

"You shouldn't waste your time, _Mr._ Lupin," said Severus. "I have no intention of keeping Remus's secret. Not after what he did to me, and maybe, not even before. I thoroughly look forward to exposing your son for what he is, so...you might as well go home."

"I understand why you want to do that. I even sympathize. But—"

"You do not," stated Severus. "And I'm not stupid or naive enough, I know where this is going."

Lupin turned to Severus, his brow crinkling into accordion folds. "I would never imply that, Severus. You—"

"We are not on first-name terms!" he interrupted, nearly shouting. He felt his own warm breath across his knees.

"I apologize," murmured Lupin. "Would you prefer I call you Mr. Snape?"

"NO. We're not on _any_ terms." He kicked his legs down in front of him, and scooted his chair further away from Lupin, until he hit the wall. "I'd prefer you go the hell home, and leave me alone." Before Lupin could reply, he added, "I didn't want to talk to you in the first place."

"I know you didn't." Lupin turned to face Severus, and pulled a piece of paper out of the folio. It was a black and white magical photograph. He held it tenderly, watching two figures move around the picture with some emotion flitting across his face.

Severus cleared his throat. "I suppose you want to show me that."

"Not really," said Lupin. "But given the circumstances..." He placed the photograph down on the coffee table between them, leaving his index finger on the upper right hand corner of the photo.

Unable to fight his own curiosity, Severus leaned forward. There was a little boy, no more than three or four years old, pulling his mother's hand forward, while she flashed a private, knowing smile at the photographer. Behind them, a dark brick building patterned with lighter stones, elaborate quoins, and a wrought-iron sign; the words continued past the picture's edge, but Severus could make out the letters "ly Ear."

Lupin noticed him reading the letters. "It was the Early Years Magical School of Glasgow. Remus started kindergarten there when he was four."

One of those independent magic schools, then; all the well-bred Hogwarts kids had attended them, except for the really loaded ones, who'd had private tutors. Severus had graduated nothing-cum-laude from Gowlston Primary School with forty-seven unexcused absences in Year 5 alone.

"That was his first day," said Lupin. "He was very excited. We all were."

Severus rolled his eyes. "What's it to do with me?"

Lupin continued. "His teacher's name was Miss Bowles. She was very kind." He looked away from the picture, off into the dark corners of the drawing room. "She was the one who gave us the papers a few months later. He was expelled. She didn't let him collect his artwork before he and my wife were escorted from the premises and permanently banned."

"Do you think I'm going to pity him because of your story?" Severus laughed harshly. "Some of us didn't go to fancy kindergartens."

Lupin drained his cup and set it down on the coffee table with a clink. He collected the photo and tucked it back into the folio with care. "It's not pity, Mr. Snape. It's understanding. This is the world we—my family—lives in."

"I don't care to understand," replied Severus. "And it's not the world I live in." He leaned back in his chair again, and stared at the blank darkness of the ceiling.

"I can see that," murmured Lupin. "And I have to admit I am disappointed. Your headmaster told me you were exceptionally bright, far advanced for your age. He said I need not speak to you like a child."

"Don't flatter me."

"It's not flattery, it's the truth. Do you want to hear another piece of truth?"

"No."

"I'll tell you anyway," said Lupin, who made eye contact with Severus for a searing second before Severus broke the connection. "Professor Dumbledore warned me not to speak with you unless he was present. He said you were extremely clever, yes, but also highly manipulative and deeply mistrustful of any figure of authority."

"You've no authority over me," said Severus coolly. "Last I checked, it was _you_ begging _me_ for my silence."

Ignoring this diversion, Lupin continued. "Furthermore, your headmaster told me you had both the motivation and the means to harm my son, and enough acumen to cover your tracks. And apparently—" Lupin glanced at his notes, "you've done so before, to another student. I won't mention _her_ name," said Lupin, stressing the pronoun, "but I might add that Professor Dumbledore suggested I communicate with you only through him, and I nearly agreed to do so."

A cool shiver travelled down Severus's spine. So Remus Lupin's posh daddy knew about Mary. And Dumbledore knew it hadn't just been Mulciber. Here was data Severus hadn't factored into the equation.

Before Lupin could detect a reaction, Severus adopted the Occlumens pose; blank face, feet flat on the floor, hands in lap, his thoughts only the words in a neutral textbook, wrapped in a bedsheet, trapped in a box, under the floorboards of an abandoned house. (No, wait—not _that_ abandoned house.)

"Why would you speak to me, then?" he said. "Since you trust Dumbledore so much."

Lupin only exhaled with amusement. Severus looked at him reluctantly.

He was perusing some sheets of parchment in the folio, with other papers spread across his lap, glasses low on his nose. He turned a page of handwritten notes with a gesture delicate enough to stroke a butterfly wing. There were no visible calluses or stains on his hands; only the wedding band, and a golden wristwatch peeking out from under his cuff. He wasn't smiling, but then—he wasn't _not_ smiling either.

"What's so funny?"

"Not funny," Lupin assured him. "Just...surprising. I suppose Professor Dumbledore and I don't see eye to eye on everything." He clasped his hands together and stared down at his fingers. "Maybe it's because he isn't a father."

Severus furrowed his brows.

"You see, the headmaster gave me the impression that you were very, er, grown up for your age. Dangerous, even. But now that we're speaking, I see that you are still a child. I wonder if Professor Dumbledore has lost sight of that."

Fuming, Severus could barely snarl his retort. "Maybe you've lost sight of the purpose of this conversation. I'm sure your kind are _used_ to assuming the superior position, but in this instance, I do believe it's _your_ kid's life on the line."

"And I'm glad you recognize that," replied Lupin softly. "Yes. My son's life does hinge on you not making a very poor choice tonight. But I hope you wouldn't take my comment as any kind of criticism. My son is a child too."

"Are you bloody serious?" snapped Severus. His heartbeat raced against the ticking of the mantel clock, forcing time forward until it crashed against the stony fortifications of his mind. "A child? He's a—a _werewolf_. You'd be haranguing him, not me, if you didn't know he'd crush your skull and eat it without a second thought, if you stepped foot in that cesspool of a _shack_ you lock him up in."

It was dark, but Severus could just about see a vein pulsing in Lupin's temple.

"Oh, but it isn't a hovel to you, it," Severus continued, "not compared to the basement you chain him up in when he's isn't at Hogwarts. Think I don't know what a werewolf is? I saw one up close and personal, tonight. He didn't discriminate between Potter and me—"

Lupin's jaws were clenched shut, and he was playing with the handkerchief again. Oh, but this was good.

—and I doubt he'd make an exception for you...unless he prefers _Muggle_ flesh. But you've got one in the house, don't you?"

"Mr. Snape," Lupin began, "you're speaking of something you don't truly understand." His voice had dropped several degrees in temperature.

"Let's not mince words, _Lupin_ ," said Severus, dispensing with all pretenses at formalities. "There's no digging yourself out of this one. Not here, not with me."

"You sound very upset," replied Lupin. He held up the second, empty glass. "Shall I pour you a glass of water?"

Severus hadn't lost control of his magic since second year, when Potter and Black had humiliated him in front of the entire potions class after stealing a note he had attempted to pass to Evans. When the cup shattered in Lupin's hand, spraying glittering particles of glass into Lupin's hand, wrist and face, he felt sorry—not for Lupin, who was bleeding from several lacerations, but for himself, for losing control.

"I will not be condescended to," whispered Severus.

Lupin, to his credit, remained calm. He placed what remained of the broken glass on the coffee table with care not to touch the sharp edges.

"It's no worry," said Lupin. "There were plenty of mishaps in my home before Remus learned to use a wand." He gingerly patted the blood off his face and arm with his wrinkled handkerchief. A field of tiny red poppies bloomed onto the silk square. Lupin plucked several shining shards from his bleeding jaw and hand, and dropped them into the broken cup on the coffee table, then vanished all of it with a flick of his wand.

"I imagine his 'mishaps' were worse than most." Severus fixed Lupin with what he hoped was a knowing stare.

Lupin's mouth tightened. "Those were my own mishaps," he said. "Not his."

"And is tonight your 'mishap' as well?" murmured Severus.

Lupin was silent. He adjusted his tie, and tugged his robes down, straightening the wings of his collar. "No," murmured Lupin. "Not tonight."

They sat and looked at one another, Severus silhouetted against the cold moonlight, and Lupin half-concealed in shadows. Lupin resembled his son—or rather, Remus resembled his father—but there were subtle differences. The older man's skin was darker and smoother, unmarred by scars and acne, but creased with lines of age that didn't quite add up. His eyes were closer together, his mouth not quite as wide as Remus Lupin's mouth, but their silences were identical: laden.

Severus thought of Tobias, for the first time that night (he refused to call the man by any kind of familial moniker.) Tobias did not wear a tie and a gold watch. Tobias had pawned his wedding ring years ago. He didn't polish his shoes, and his silence only ever preceded a fist against the kitchen table. Professor Dumbledore would not be contacting Tobias tonight, and even if he did, Tobias would not be coming to Hogwarts to see his son, because to him, Hogwarts was only the place where Severus went to be invisible and get fed on someone else's dime.

"I know you probably think I won't be convincing you of anything tonight," murmured Lupin softly, not so much breaking the silence as shifting it forward.

"You won't be."

He pushed up his glasses and half-smiled at Severus. "I'm afraid that isn't so, son. You see, I've protected Remus from the likes of people much, much more dangerous than you. And I don't intend to give up now."

"You're _not my father_." The words tasted alkaline, inedible. Especially that last one.

"Of course not," replied the infuriatingly patient man with the watch and ring and the shiny shoes. "If I were your father, you would have received the guidance you so desperately need." Lupin paused to smooth his handkerchief out over the folio on his lap, pressing the wrinkles flat. "It saddens me to see you never got it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...


	4. Operatics of the Wind

And time oozed onward and outward, sliding down the hilly castle grounds, spreading from the nearly-unchanging fortress of timetables and permission slips into the Real World—the world he'd left behind. He was thirty-two, and then he was thirty-three, and the instructions never changed: wait. Watch. Be on guard, for the day will come when the boy will be not taught, but tested, and he will need all the help he can get. The headmaster permitted Potter his little challenges—close encounters with toothy beasts, and late nights duels, his forays beneath the Cloak of Unsubtlety (as Snape liked to think of it), and Snape followed his orders, as he was told. He wasn't happy about it—well, he wasn't happy at all, not really. But there were small joys.

He liked to walk the ramparts at a punishing hour in the morning, after the troublemakers had fallen asleep, but before the other staff woke, and came to him with their criticisms and demands. He breathed the dewy-cool air and watched the sky crack open, a fingernail's width of light slicing horizon from grass. Back in the old days, Snape used to peek between doors and doorframes, watching things he wasn't supposed to be privy to, and now he spied on the moon slinking offstage when the sun slipped through the curtains. In another life, he might have been a naturalist and a painter, collecting plant specimens on his walks and illustrating them in the perfect solitude of a studio in the woods. In fact, the headmaster had promised that one of these other lives might become real someday, if Snape ever lived to see the completion of The Task.

"You are in my debt," Albus Dumbledore had said, when Snape complained about his life in near-servitude more than ten years into his tenure as a teacher. "When the debt is repaid, you will be free to go where you want, to live as you choose. I thought this was understood."

"Perhaps the interest on this debt has compounded past the principal," Snape had hissed. "What of my _life_? What if I don't even live to see the Dark Lord defeated? I might never see freedom!"

" And that's certainly something to consider when you look at the boy, Severus," Dumbledore had replied mildly. "It is Harry who has been beholden to a Herculean task since his infancy. He has known no other life, nor will he, should he fail at his mission. But you have lived two decades of freedom, and now you are in arrears on account of your own choices."

"If you think—" Snape had whispered, "if you believe—that I made every choice... _freely..._ "

But Dumbledore was unmoved. "And none of us live without the pressures and influence of others. Not myself. Not you. And certainly not Harry. So we find happiness where we can tread, knowing some gardens are fenced off from us, and some paths slope uphill."

But now there was another caped figure disrupting the sublime Friedrich landscape, and ruining his stony, secluded path. The man loped unevenly, cloak fluttering in the breeze, and as he came closer, Snape realized the man in the cape was limping. So. Of all the people Snape didn't want to see early on a Sunday morning...

* * *

Severus glared at the man in the tortoiseshell glasses, who has looking at Severus with the kindly condescension of the lady at the church who gave out hampers at Christmas. His leather folio probably cost more than the Snape family's weekly grocery bill.

"Why would I want _your_ guidance?" said Severus, who shifted in his seat, pulling himself upright. _Professionalism, pugnacity, power, projection_...that was what the Youth Liaison had advised him and several other talented Slytherins at their first meeting, when each student had been gifted a tiny polished clamshell box containing a thimble-sized silver snake. _Our Master shows his appreciation for your time and effort._ "It seems to me that if you were father-of-the-year, we wouldn't be sitting here today."

A flicker, a quiver, a smidgen of doubt on Lyall Lupin's face, just before it returned to mature tranquility. "No," he said softly. "We wouldn't." But—" and at this, he leaned forward, towards Severus, "—somehow, I don't expect that award to go to your father either."

No response.

"Or am I wrong?" But he knew he wasn't wrong.

"People like you," said Severus unhurriedly, "aren't nearly as intimidating or impressive as you think you are. We aren't fooled, and we don't fear you."

"And who is this _we_?" asked Lupin, closing his folio. He removed his glasses and wiped each lens with his wrinkled handkerchief.

"You'll find out in a few years." Severus's smile didn't reach his glistening black eyes or his acne-ridden forehead. "But by then, it will be too late."

Lupin frowned and put his glasses back on. "I'm sure it will be," he said. "Too late for you. Tell me, young man: what role do you think you'll have in all this?"

"I'm—"

"The Headmaster told me you're a half-blood, just like Remus. He said you come from, and I quote, 'a no-name family,' as far as certain factions are concerned. Where do you think that leaves you?"

He felt uncomfortable with this line of questioning, but it was important that he stay strong; in the future, there would be many late nights, many close calls and clever interrogators, the Youth Liaison had warned. _It's all practice_ , he assured himself _. All just a trial round..._

"The cream rises," shot back Severus.

"In a just world, it would" Lupin offered. "Are you sure that's the world you're signing up for?"

"I can't see it getting much more unjust than this one," Severus retorted. "Werewolves roaming the campus of Hogwarts, blatant favouritism, strong-arming the victim into covering up for the perpetrator...money covers up everything, money and good looks. And the right breeding. What have I got to lose?"

Lupin smiled as he replied, "Only your innocence, your childhood, your ability to sleep through the night. "

"Maybe I never had any of those things to begin with."

Lupin stood up, and pulled his wand out, which made Severus flinch and reach for his own reflexively. But Lupin only pointed his wand at the dying fire and said, " _Flatio_!" Air whooshed from his wand, fanning the red coals with fresh oxygen. Tongues of fire danced, and flickered, reflected by Lupin's glasses. He looked like a man with flames for eyes.

"And anyway," added Severus, "I wouldn't take advice from some fifty-year-old who's got himself a miserable life."

"Forty-two," said Lupin, shaking his head in amusement. The fire flickered back and forth across his glasses. "And what makes you think I'm miserable?"

Severus sneered. "It's obvious isn't it?"

"Are you referring to Remus's condition, or the fact that I am married to a Muggle?" asked Lupin. He tucked his folio beside him and stretched his hands out on his lap, palms open to the ceiling, as though he were ready to accept whatever Severus might offer.

"Both," said Severus imperiously. "Clearly, you grew up with money and good breeding. Yet, somehow, you've managed to acquire a woman who can't cast a simple _Lumos_ and a son who could kill you and will never get a job. You'll never be back in the good graces of wizard society, your kid's too dangerous for the Muggle world, and now you have to show up at Hogwarts at one in the morning too beg a teenager for mercy. And things are going to get even worse for people like you."

Severus waited for his adversary to react, but Lupin was quiet for a long moment. He stared down at his open palms, the two of them listening to the mournful operatics of the wind.

"Mr. Snape..." began Lupin, very quietly. Severus tried to make eye contact, but Lupin would not meet his gaze. "You are a remarkable boy. Clever, but..."

"But?"

Lupin's collar and robes shifted up and down with the force of his sigh. He lowered his spectacles to rub his eyes, then pushed them back up the bridge of his nose. "There are complications in my life, yes," he mumbled. "There are difficulties. But..."

Lupin's smile was almost blurry; maybe it was the dim light, or the late hour and Severus's fatigue, or maybe he only remembered it that way, years later, because so many things had happened in the interim. But he would remember, ipsissima verba, what Lupin said next.

"I happen to be married to a courageous, kind and lovely woman, whose unique gifts impress me far more than the power of most witches I know," explained Lupin. "I could not be luckier to have such a mother for my son. And yes...it causes me great pain to see my son suffer every month. I don't think, at your age, you can really know what it means to witness your child in agony, unable to interfere or help. I wouldn't wish it on any person...except, maybe, one." At this, Lupin's lips twisted briefly into an ugly configuration before settling back into the blurry smile.

He continued. "But there is also no happiness like watching your child grow into a brave, resilient, remarkably compassionate and brilliant young man—who, it seems, has put his trust in the wrong person. And he will hear about that from me, Mr. Snape, do not doubt it. But I am, on the whole, a tremendously lucky person to have the wife and child I do."

Severus pushed a lock of oily black hair back behind his ear. He wasn't buying this—not the contrition, not the pity, certainly not the Loving Dad act.

"But you have no freedom!" he snapped. "No way out. You _know_ you'll never get rid of him—you'll practically carry him on your back the rest of his life!" he cried. "You can say all you want about Remus, and maybe I can believe he's not a bastard to you like he is at school, but he's a _werewolf_. He's a burden, and you won't even admit it, because you still want to pretend to have this perfect, conventional life. And maybe, I don't even want a conventional life."

Lupin clasped his hands together and looked down, a gesture that reminded Severus of prayer.

"But _every_ child is a burden," he said quietly. "You think your parents don't carry that, too?"

Severus was silent. His glare was a painted-on expression, a frozen mask. Beneath it, thoughts and recollections, fragments and laments flickered and swayed in his mind, like so many birthday candle flames.

"You've no obligation to live a conventional life, Mr. Snape," Lupin murmured. "And I wouldn't expect anyone your age to know what kind of life he would want for himself, either way. When I was sixteen, I couldn't have imagined living with the pressures I do now..." His brow creased. The lines of tension between his eyebrows were deep as fissures in a granite wall. "But neither could I have imagined what it felt like to meet someone so lovely that I would _want_ to be a father, _want_ to carry that weight."

"I don't care about your feelings," said Severus coldly. "Your son attempted to kill me. It's that simple."

"But you ought to care about your own feelings," Lupin corrected him. His voice was growing hoarse with effort, and he spoke more and more quickly as he continued. "You could meet someone two, five, even ten years from now, someone who might make you want to be a different kind of person. It's impossible to imagine now, I _know_ it is, but you might one day wish you could go back to today, as horrible as this day has been for you, and choose to do something impossibly kind and improbably generous. And I know you might feel my son doesn't deserve your kindness, but that's besides the point—because one day, _the person you meet_ might deserve all your kindness and more, and you'll wish you still had the chance to become a person she deserves" Lupin explained frantically.

Severus's sharp fingernails were digging into the skin of his palm.

( _He'd already met her_.)

"It would seem," Severus replied, stretching out each word like saltwater taffy, "that you speak more to yourself than to me." He unclenched his fist. "You have many regrets. What a shame." He pulled two curtains of greasy hair down around his face, guarding his tired eyes. "But I won't be collateral damage for them."

The two of them looked at each other wearily. Father and son, but not to each other— they didn't belong to one another, and but for this night, they would never have met.

"Severus...Mr. Snape...or however you wanted to be called," Lupin said, in a voice like the shuffling of a blanket across sheets, "I pity you. I mean that genuinely. I don't know you very well, no, but I can see that there is something in you that is bruised. I wish I could help—perhaps I can—but I am compelled to speak out when I see a boy— "

"I'm not a child," whispered Severus. "I never was."

"A young man, then, making choices the consequences of which he most certainly does not understand."

Threads of rage, of shame, of humiliation crisscrossed through Severus; he was angry and he was uncertain, and it only made him more keen to strike. He stood up so quickly that his chair was pushed back, screeching against the stone floor like a wounded owl.

"Who are _you?_ " Severus hissed. "Who do you think you are that you can tell me what I am—or what I'm choosing—you don't know me, you don't know what it's like!" He realized he was shouting. Without his wand, Severus could only shove his hands into his pockets, clenching and unclenching his fists, hoping his magic wouldn't get out of control again.

Lupin was calm as he said, "Only a person with several years on you. Someone who knows what it means to make a choice that will haunt him for the rest of his life."

Their eyes met across the dimly lit room. A cloud passed over the moon, and the silvery light disappeared. Lines of red and gold traced what shone; the C-shaped curve of the water pitcher, the twin red planets of Lupin's glasses, and an irregular polygon describing a shard of glass Lupin forgot to Vanish. The shape reminded Severus of...reminded him of...what was it...

The two worry lines in Lupin's forehead were just barely outlined in crimson.

The polygon was...something about the shape, a quadrilateral, four corners. Two men, one young, one middle-aged, and the other two were...one had to be Remus Lupin, hadn't it? The boy like an anchor on his father's conscience. And the fourth corner...but Severus couldn't know who completed the square of regret, not then, not that night. Not in the sitting room, not on the wing-backed chair, not with his scabbed knuckles in his empty pockets, not with James Potter in the back of his mind at all times. Not with his bed unmade but empty in the Slytherin dormitory, not with Minerva McGonagall biting her fingernails while she waited outside the Shrieking Shack, not with the snow starting to fall again, not with the wind caterwauling through the crooked, black trees. Not in the darkest hour of a February night, not in the depths of winter, not in 1976, not until the broken glass couldn't be made whole again. In the fireplace, sparks crackled in syncopation, snapping out a rhythm: not, not, not, not, knot, naught.

When the cloud drifted away, moonlight crept back through the window, and the moment broke, and Lyall Lupin produced a quill, seemingly out of nothing. "It's time," he said, "that we discuss terms. Surely, that's what you mean to do, isn't it."

And Severus narrowed his eyes; he was ready to talk.

* * *

"Good morning, Severus," said the limping man politely.

"Morning." Professor Snape continued to walk past him, hoping their paths would cross just the once, but the man turned about to follow Snape, increasing his uneven pace until they were walking side by side.

"Do you need something?" said Snape stiffly.

"A great many things," smiled the caped man, "but I doubt I shall find them at the moment." He looked older than he was, and it wasn't just because of the limp; his hair had receded somewhat at the temples, leaving an M-shaped crown of brown and grey atop his lined face. His jawline, once a jaunty half-oval, had softened since the bloom of youth, as had his waistline. The creases around his mouth did not disappear when he ceased to smile.

"My office hours begin at nine o'clock," said Snape. "It is five-thirty." He nodded abruptly towards the rising sun, flashing his gargoyle-like mask of irritation for effect.

"Yes, I noticed that," observed Remus Lupin, Gryffindor graduate, Associate Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, unrepentant lycanthrope and distinguished practitioner of the Cheshire Cat Smile. "Poppy warned me you preferred getting an early start to the day."

"I also prefer to walk alone," said Snape testily.

"It's a beautiful view. Peaceful." Lupin surveyed the landscape, all varying shades of blue in the early morning light. "I quite forgot how majestic it all is, from up here.""

Snape stopped walked abruptly, and turned to face his interloper.

"That was your hint, _professor_ ," he said, and adjusted his own cloak, so that it covered him as he reached for his wand.

"I apologize if I've overstepped, Severus," Lupin said mildly. "I had rather hoped to get you on your own, before the usual chaos of school prevents us from having an uninterrupted conversation."

"Your potion is not ready yet. It will not be ready for another week, as I said yesterday."

"It isn't the Wolfsbane I wanted to discuss," Lupin said. "But thank you, once again."

The blustering October wind seemed especially drawn to Lupin, rippling and tossing his travelling cloak and robes with gleeful abandon, so that Lupin had to regularly tug his cloak back down in hopes of retrieving some warmth. Snape wondered blankly if Peeves might be playing a trick on Lupin, for he often turned invisible in Snape's formidable presence.

"Yes, my cloak has been rather bothering me since I got here," said Lupin, noticing Snape's attention. "I've had it a long time, and I never had any trouble. Ever since I've come back to Hogwarts, it seems the old spirits have made a target of me."

"I doubt that," Snape sad, flatly, but a queer shiver ran from his thorax into his belly. There was something about the teasing wind that reminded him of an old foe, who used to tousle his own hair with the same insouciant mirth. He clutched his wand more tightly.

"And Merlin, is it cold in Scotland," murmured Lupin. "Anyways."

"Anyways...?"

Lupin sighed. "I've tried to approach you in the staff room, and after dinner. You've been avoiding me."

"Wouldn't anyone?" Snape said, and a dark smile twisted his face.

Lupin pushed his cloak tightly around him like a blanket. "I won't take up too much of your time. But there is something I have to say, Severus, and it's important."

"And you don't think the time for that is long gone," remarked Snape dryly. "How brave you are to approach me now. What convenient timing."

"Well, I couldn't have told you much sooner," said Lupin, his irritation beginning to wear through the mask of civility, "seeing as my father only recently told me what you had him do, when I mentioned that you were teaching at Hogwarts."

Snape twitched. The icy wind seared his numb ears and nose, and seemed to drive right through him, as though he were a ghost.

"So you see," Lupin continued, "I couldn't have approached you until now."

"He never told you," said Snape, speaking as softly as chalk.

"No."

Wispy clouds were breaking apart, chasing each other across the honeydew-coloured sky. The silhouette of an owl ranged across the distant mountains, returning from the hunt.

Snape took a step away from Lupin, towards the crenellated walls. He laid a gloved hand on the cold stone.

"You've been quite protected," he said, addressing the lake and mountains and hazy blue Forbidden Forest.

"In some ways," agreed Lupin. "My father was always like that."

"An Occlumens?" asked Snape, genuinely curious.

"Goodness, no," laughed Lupin. "Just a dad."

Snape didn't know what that meant; or he knew, but didn't want to. Perhaps the best thing about teaching at Hogwarts was that it meant little to no interaction with parents, and most of the teachers had no children.

"And what do you want from me now?" said Snape, as he turned and eyed his old adversary warily. "You can't see I haven't upheld my end of the bargain."

"No," said Lupin evenly. "I just thought you might want to know what you really asked of him."

"I know what I asked."

"Do you?" said Lupin, his face somber but for eyes squinting against the wind. His cloak was fastened shut with a battered bronze pin. "Because my father was under the impression you were not entirely knowledgeable about the person whose freedom you facilitated"

"It was a break-and-enter," breathed Snape, his blank face yielding nothing. "That's what the charges were. It's all on paper."

"So is this," stated Lupin, who was sliding wiry reading glasses onto his nose with one hand. He pulled a yellowed piece of paper from a pocket inside his cloak, and unfolded it with a gentleness that whispered a memory through Snape. "April 18th, 1977. That was a year after the—"

"Yes, I know."

"April 18th, 1977,"repeated Lupin. "London—Mr. Antonin Dolohov, age 24, was sentenced Thursday to four years in Azkaban Prison on two counts of intimate assault of a female Muggle, and one count of intimidation of a Muggle using magical means. Mr. Dolohov was found guilty by the Wizengamot, and sentenced by Judge Horatio Solvinger in a separate hearing. The court had previously found Mr. Dolohov not guilty of one count of breaking-and-entering and one count of theft of a magically enhanced artifact in a previous trial held on June 25th, 1976. The arrest of Mr. Dolohov follows a series of violent and unprovoked crimes against Muggles and Squibs in Camberley this fall, which some Aurors have claimed may be connected with a growing movement against....et cetera, et cetera. "

Lupin removed his reading glasses, folded them, and tucked them into his collar.

"I know that wasn't in the paper," Snape said stiffly.

"No, it wasn't," agreed Lupin. "It was censored. The _Prophet_ was already infiltrated by that point, but the story ended up in an archive that got declassified in '88."

"And you dug through the archives at the Bibliomagica for...what reason?"

Lupin smiled sadly. "I trust Albus Dumbledore," he said.

Snape only waited. It was a waiting game with Remus Lupin; devoid of the reflexes or the skill necessary for genuine magical combat, Lupin resorted to petty psychological abuse of the kind most often seen in adolescent girls.

"And Professor Dumbledore says he trusts you," Lupin continued, "and he says you are entirely on the side of what is righteous. And if I trust him—" at this, Lupin fixed him with shamefully direct eye contact, "—then I trust you."

The sun had crept up over the horizon, lighting up the windows of the Astronomy Tower with glittering gold. Even the ancient slate roof tiles looked brand new in the intimacy of a rosy new dawn.

Lupin took a tiny step closer to Snape; just enough to lower his voice without losing it to the wind. Snape was uncomfortable with this, but did not want to step back, as if in fear.

"That means I believe you have a conscience," murmured Lupin. "And anyone with a conscience would want to know—would _need_ to know—what they've done. Who they've enabled."

"Your father is just as responsible—"

"Let's not continue with that pantomime, now," whispered Lupin, his bloodshot blue eyes pinning Severus like a butterfly to a display case. "My father can wrestle with his conscience on his own time. And he does. At the very least, he acted out of desperation—out of love. What did you act out of, Severus? Who were you protecting?"

Snape stood very still, though his pleated robes and bishop sleeves billowed in the wind. Lupin watched him intently, one finger tracing the pocket where Snape knew he kept his wand.

When he spoke, his voice was velvet and dust, just loud enough to be heard once, without echoing.

"Myself," said Snape. "No one else would, you see." He stared at Lupin, a muscle just barely quivering in his sallow cheek. To his credit, Lupin stared back without so much as a twitch.

"Now, if you would excuse me, Professor Lupin," he beckoned for the Defense professor to step aside, "It is the only hour of the day that belongs to me alone, and I intend to make use of it."

Lupin waited until Snape had briskly walked several metres away, before he added pleasantly, "She later died, Severus. Self-inflicted wounds. There was a story in the Muggle press."

Snape didn't want to pause, he didn't want to turn back, and Merlin knew the self-righteous hypocrite didn't deserve a single additional moment of his time. And yet, there he was again, facing the man with the tattered cloak twisting in the wind, the man who'd aged like milk in the sun

"If there's something you've got to say to me, Lupin, by all means, have out with it." Snape's wand hand twitched, menacingly.

"I've said my part," said Lupin calmly. "Here. You can keep the article, if you want." He proffered the newspaper clipping towards Snape, who did nothing to accept the folded paper.

"Alright, then," Lupin murmured, placing the clipping back into his pocket. His expansive, yet shapeless eyebrows raised only just, as he added, "I'll assume, then, that you've made your peace."

The autumn wind snuck through Severus, penetrating the long, black habiliments of his self-assigned uniform. He was pierced, or maybe just prodded in a sensitive spot. Snape responded accordingly.

"What debts I've incurred, I pay, _I've paid_ , with a king's ransom," he hissed. "I only wonder if you're a usurer in arrears, looking for old liabilities to collect on when a reckoning is due."

"I earn my keep, Severus," Lupin half-smiled, an impassive quarter moon slicing his face.

* * *

Late that evening, his index finger descended the table of contents like a ladder. The graduate student's typing was atrocious, and correction tape covered multiple errors throughout the book. Draughts 1 through 11 were not appropriate to the occasion. Draughts 12 to 26 were too tiring. Draughts 27 and 28 were missing, the page having been stained beyond magical repair and impossible to translate. He didn't have the necessary ingredients on hand for the highly Draughts 29 through 32. That left Draught 33. It was as though Shivani always knew exactly not what he wanted, but what he needed...she was a true visionary, a witch (or wizard) of a kind that no longer existed. He wanted to weep for never having known her, for not even knowing if she were an individual person or a collective, for not having the words to understand her in her original tongue. His hands caressed the powdery yellowed pages, wishing he'd paid for a translation onto archival parchment, but he hadn't had the money back then. The old man had steadily increased his salary over the years, commensurate to his growing value—not as an educator, but as a kind of alter ego, a dark Esau to the old man's shining, blue-eyed Jacob.

Professor Snape settled on Draught 33, and Summoned a small cauldron from a cupboard. His office was dark, lit by a crackling torch affixed to the stone wall with iron brackets. A gas lamp provided a small pool of additional lighting to the workspace on his desk. He raised the hawthorn wand, an incantation flowering in the darkness of his mouth.

* * *

Draught 33

_To re-align the inner and outer compartments of the soul; to mend tears of the conscience; to suture invisible wounds. Not to be used in the event of corporeal blood loss._

Ingredients

1 cup water

1 spoonful of loose leaf tea

1/2 teaspoon honey

12 petals of Edelweiss

1 hour silence

Bring the water to a boil and pour into a teacup. Stir in loose leaf tea and allow to steep for two minutes. Add honey. Scatter the petals below your feet. Slowly consume tea over the course of the hour, occasionally stirring, sucking spoon, rearranging teacup on saucer, or fiddling with handle. Turn the teacup over, allowing tea leaves to fall onto the saucer. Resist the urge to practice any form of divination. Leave petals to disintegrate over time, as all things do. Trample the petals haphazardly as you dispose of sodden leaves. The future is unknowable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is likely the penultimate chapter; things should get wrapped up in the next chapter. Let me know if you have any burning questions you simply must see answered!


	5. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the last chapter! Let me know how you felt about this story; I always appreciate different perspectives on Snape, and how we interpret his challenging behaviour.

_If you've never wept and want to, have a child._

-David Foster Wallace

* * *

Lupin and Severus both started at the sound of a soft knock upon the hidden door. They both turned as Dumbledore re-entered the room, his robes sweeping the stone floor like velvet curtains across a stage. His wand tip was glowing.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," said the headmaster, "but I did say I would grant you an hour to speak. An hour and twenty minutes have passed. It's two-twenty in the morning."

"Is it?" said Lupin, scrambling around in his chair to face Dumbledore. "I'm very sorry to have kept Severus so long..."

"Excuse me, we're in the middle of something," said Severus curtly.

"Oh, really?" Dumbledore smiled. "I'm pleased to hear you're making progress. But Severus, I'm certain you're very tired, as is Mr. Lupin—"

"I'm very sorry to be taking so long, sir," Lupin apologized, "but I do think we haven't quite worked out—"

"He hasn't finished attempting to bribe me," Snape said drily. "Haven't you?'

Dumbledore lowered his wand to his side, and fixed Severus with an authoritative look. His mouth formed a thin line, dividing silvery beard from mustache.

"Mr. Lupin is my guest in this castle, Severus," he said. "Please speak to him with the respect he deserves."

"Don't worry, I am," sneered Severus.

Lupin, who was unphased by Severus's unkind words, thanked the headmaster yet again for allowing him to speak with Severus. Then he stood up and approached Dumbledore, lowering his voice to converse with the headmaster privately. Dumbledore nodded, and the pair continued to speak quietly. Severus closed his eyes and tried to focus only on the hushed sounds, but he could make out only a few words, here and there.

"Please, sir...as, of course, we...but...intractable, but...for...promised her that...naturally...not at all..."

Dumbledore clasped Lupin's arm reassuringly, and the two men exchanged significant looks.

"I cannot thank you enough, sir," Lupin said, just loudly enough for Severus to overhear.

"I must commend you both on your patience," Dumbledore replied. "I know you both must be quite exhausted and in need of sleep."

"It's no trouble sir," assured Lupin, looking much less self-assured and confident in the presence of the headmaster. "I'm afraid I never sleep at the full moon anyway."

"Of course," agreed Dumbledore. "Well, Severus—I have agreed to grant Mr. Lupin an additional half hour with you, before I must insist you meet with me, and then run off to bed."

"Can't I just finish with Mr. Lupin and then go to bed?" asked Severus, already knowing the answer.

"Unfortunately, you may not," said the headmaster kindly. "But you will be exempt from all classes today."

Severus didn't care about class—all of his courses were boringly easy—so he simply watched Dumbledore step out of the room, closing behind him the door that melted back into a solid wall.

Mr. Lupin checked his watch, as though to confirm the lateness of the hour. Firelight gleamed off its golden bezel.

"I don't mean to be rude," he said, addressing the dark room rather than Severus specifically, "but I really must send a message to my wife before we continue. She was expecting an owl..." He removed his wand from the interior pocket of his coat, and swished it about in the air, murmuring, " _Expecto patronum_!"

A ghostly, luminous shape flowed forth from the wand, like rushing water; it expanded into a four-legged shape before floating down to the floor. The lamb trotted up to Lupin, its coat glowing bright with silvery curls of wool. Lupin looked down at his Patronus and extended two fingers towards it, as though to pet it, but he didn't touch its ghostly face. The lamb sniffed at his fingers. It had wide-set innocent eyes, not dark so much as lacking in silvery illumination.

(Years later, Severus would think of that Patronus when he saw the boy with glowing eyes and dark hair, like a photographic negative of the lamb. There was something Patronus-like about him too: his swift feet, the way he appeared and disappeared from beneath his Cloak without warning, the readiness with which he plunged into the darkness. Or maybe it was just the incantation. _I await my guardian_... )

When Lupin spoke, his voice was gentle, softer than before, the intimacy of his tone chafing at Severus like nettles against soft skin.

"Message to Hope Lupin," he said. Glancing at Severus and then looking away, Lupin continued. "Darling... I am continuing to speak with the Dumbledore, and we are sorting out the situation. Everything is under control. I will stay until sunrise to see Remus. Try to get some sleep, love. I'll send an owl later." He nodded at the lamb, which trotted up into the air, and cantered around the room, leaving an aurora-like trail behind it, before fading away into the darkness.

Severus forced a dark chuckle. "Do you often lie to your wife?" he drawled.

Storm clouds gathered on Lupin's lined face. He forced his wand back into his coat's pocket with more force than strictly necessary. "I beg your pardon?"

"Everything is not under control," said Severus lazily. "Not under yours, anyway."

Lupin opened his mouth, then closed it, and sat back down in the winged armchair by the fireplace.

"Must be easy for you," Severus continued, "seeing as it's clearly not your first time."

"You are very bold, young man," replied Lupin quietly. "Do you often speak to adults this way?"

"Don't answer a question with a question."

"I expect you're taking liberties because you feel you have something to hold over me," continued Lupin, ignoring Severus's line of inquiry. "Still, I cannot help but worry about the habits of speech and comportment you've developed. Not all adults are going to be as patient or forgiving as I have been tonight."

"You aren't patient _or_ forgiving!" spat Severus. "You're just desperate, that's all. You'd say anything to get your way."

"There are two desperate people in this room," Lupin intoned, clasping his hands before him as though in supplication.

The fatigue and anger and frustration were thickening into a mental fog; Severus was not as sharp as usual, and his defenses were down. He felt exposed; opened; he wished he could continue the conversation after a night's sleep. He wanted a fat library book open on a desk between Lupin and himself; he wanted his wand, like a child wants his blanket. Part of Severus suspected Dumbledore had set him up this way, knowingly, though as usual, there was never enough evidence against the old man to form a coherent complaint.

"Don't you have some bribery to get on with?" asked Severus, as coldly as he could muster. "I assume you normally pay people off for this sort of indulgence."

"I could offer you money," agreed Lupin, "and I will, but I have something better." He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. His eyes were completely cast in shadow, two dark depressions like the sockets of a skull.

"What."

"A reputation. A future," said the dark skull, and then he turned his head just enough so that his glasses were alight with golden flames again. "I'm not rich, but I have a decent career as a researcher in my field. I have many publications to my name, and some connections of great repute. I know you're a bright boy and not lacking for magical talent either."

Severus laughed.

"Now, at your age, this may not sound enticing, but look—see here—I can give you an apprenticeship. I can hire you. You'd get a resumé, a reference, some wonderful experience—"

"Are you serious?" said Severus drily. "This is really your attempt at persuasion?"

"Have you considered your future seriously?" asked Lupin, leaning forward. "Really considered what you want to do after Hogwarts? Because there, I can help—I can give you a chance, a way out—"

"Out of what?" Severus's fists clenched out of instinct.

"I think we both know," said Lupin mildly. He opened his folio upon his lap, and removed a sheet of parchment from inside it. Pulling a short, stubby Auto-Inking quill from the breast pocket of his robes, he began to write something down. "Even if you don't want to talk to me—"

"We've already established that I don't," Severus interrupted drily.

"Well, here's a name. A friend of mine. He's come from circumstances that are, I suspect, very much like yours, and he's had great success in his career, despite his upbringing. I know he would take you on if I asked—there might be money it for you too..."

"And exactly what _circumstances_ are those?"

Lupin fell silent. Though Severus couldn't see his eyes, he knew Lupin was staring at him, probably full of contempt and pity.

"Go ahead, say it," whispered Severus. "Tell me exactly why you think I should be so flattered so become your underling."

Lupin exhaled roughly. "I'm not looking for a underling," he said softly. "But if you must know—"

"I _really_ must," Severus interrupted bitterly.

"Then I will tell you," Lupin replied in that gratingly upper class, nasal baritone. He leaned forward and fixed Severus with a plaintive look. "I am in need of your co-operation for the protection of Remus. That we both know. But you are in need of my help, or at least _some_ adult's help, because you are heading down a dark and dangerous path as a result of the most common afflictions. Poverty. Humiliation. Either no father, or none of any merit—"

"How dare you..." whispered Severus. Blurred images flickered through his mind, distorting like a melting film strip: Potter with his feet up on the Gryffindor house table, the warped floorboards of his bedroom in Cokeworth, blackened bricks, a wand at his temple. Tying a macramé bracelet onto a freckled wrist. Huge, filthy workboots next to his mother's Chinese slippers; a secondhand cauldron; the cruel grey-eyed gaze of Black. And the man in front of him, tweed-robed, flame-eyed, the stupid leather folio stamped with a gold foil monogram and the eyeglasses; he wanted to stamp on every pair of glasses in the world, wanted to watch the crushed glass abrase skin into blood...

Magic was roiling, rushing beneath his skin like a growing tidal wave. He fought hard to control himself; had he his wand, he would have cursed Lupin ages ago, but unintentional magic could only ever be a childish humiliation. His fists turned white from clenching.

Lupin' pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand. His forehead knit up into a tight map of lines. Softly, he said "I'm sorry, Mr. Snape. I regret happened to you tonight. I'm sorry for whatever has transpired between you and my son and his friends. Remus will...he will hear about that." Lupin paused, and then added quietly, "From me."

He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. For the first time that night, Severus noticed how tired Lupin appeared; not just tired, but _exhausted_. Spent. Only when he leaned forward were the dark depressions below his eyes outlined in reflected firelight. His fatigue only made Severus feel more tired himself; he wanted out, his wanted his bed. The night was dragging on, and Severus along with it. He almost expected to see the parallel tracks of his feet in the dirt.

"So," Lupin murmured. "Will you consider my offer? I can pay you too—I will pay you now—I will give you what you need. But I don't just want to pay you off." He closed his folio and stretched his blood-speckled handkerchief out before him. "Despite what you may believe...I want to make things right."

Severus opened his mouth to refuse the offer, but found he could not speak. Something constricted his throat.

"There's only so much I can do for my son," Lupin admitted, his voice gravelly and hoarse. "I do what I can. But you have opportunities he could only dream of.

Still silent, Severus could only avert his gaze, and stare down at his robed knees. It was impossible to continue looking at Remus Lupin's father without doing something he hadn't allowed himself to do since he was very small. The dark room closed in on him, surrounding him with thick, impassable grief, like a dark locket around a tintype. He wrapped his arms around himself.

The thought of accepting Lupin's offer was a tiny red balloon, rising in him, clashing horridly with its surroundings. He knew he wouldn't accept, couldn't take charity from his enemies. He couldn't take charity at all. It was an insult to everything he knew himself to be.The balloon would pop.

And, yet.

* * *

Coloured shapes darted across the sky, flittering back and forth past Professor Snape's window. It was set deep into the castle wall in a keyhole shaped alcove, with a window seat cut from the raw stone. Snape approached the glass to let the fragile November sunlight touch his skin. He sat down. Ravenclaw was playing against Hufflepuff, which meant Snape had no obligation to supervise the match; and Dumbledore had suggested he take the afternoon to rest, knowing the presence of Dementors on campus left Snape feeling depleted and raw. Cirrus clouds grazed the sky.

There was talk in the staff room about the Dementors, about how horrid it was to allow them around children. Hagrid shuddered at their very mention. Flitwick, Burbage, McGonagall and Hooch spoke of Harry. They said it was awful, how Dementors affected him, as though no one else had lived through the war. As if no one else had lost anything of value. Dumbledore suggested that staff learnt to produce a Patronus, in case of emergencies, and Lupin offered his assistance. But when Snape asked him to demonstrate his own Patronus, Lupin had demurely refused.

Snape leaned his head against the cool, hard masonry. He imagined the stone to be a Pensieve, siphoning away all the thoughts, the subjunctive what-ifs and might-have-beens. Yesterday, he'd noticed Harry in the Great Hall at supper. He was sitting with Granger and Weasley, who followed him around like obedient ducklings. Weasley was balancing a piece of food on his nose, and Granger's hair was a cloud of dust around her, and Harry's head was thrown back, laughing. His eyes squeezed shut and mouth wide open with joy. And a searing pain that rippled through Snape, cutting and cauterizing him at once. The scene before him blurred into four stripes and hundreds of red and brown and blond spots against a black sea. Snape dipped a napkin into a goblet of cold water and pressed it against his forehead.

He had never wanted children, but if things had been different.

He had no desire for a conventional family life, but if he'd walked another path.

He'd arrived at Hogwarts, age eleven, with total certainty that he knew how a wizard ought to be, but if he'd been struck with wonder instead...the way her eyes had widened, emerald-bright stained glass windows shining as she pointed to the glittering lights of the Astronomy Tower and breathed, "Oh, do we _really_ get to stay here?"

If doors had been closed; if windows had opened. If the past was only a train ride away, a folded ticket...

Snape retrieved _Experiments, 1911_ from the desk across from his bed. He carefully opened it to page 60, where an old, wrinkled piece of parchment was folded into quarters. He unfolded it with care and replaced the book on the desk; then, he returned to the window and held the parchment close to the glass so that light melted across the buttery white page.

* * *

"No," Severus finally said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Are you certain?" asked Lupin. "Because this is an opportunity most people your age don't get."

"No," he repeated. "I know what I want. And it isn't your money, either. I can earn my own."

Lupin looked skeptical. "Then...?"

Severus inhaled and relaxed against his armchair, looking up at the dark ceiling. At first, he'd stalled for time, pondering how best to use his opportunity, and the temptation to exact swift revenge on Potter's crew had clouded his judgment. But he remembered the tiny silver snake, and the Youth Liaison, the multi-step process that led, ultimately, to real power in the coming new world. He had been asked to do something far outside his comfort zone and seemingly impossible for an underage wizard; but now—but now...

"A man is going to be on trial in the Wizengamot in May or June," said Severus. "The investigation is ongoing. "

Lupin's lips formed a thin line, so like Professor McGonagall's.

"He needs a person to testify that they were with him on a particular night in January. Not necessarily _with_ him, per se, but that they saw him in a specific location."

"An alibi," said Lupin coolly.

"Yes."

"And what is he on trial for?" asked Lupin.

"It's not relevant," Severus dismissed him. "Not to you, anyway. I only need you to testify as to his whereabouts—you don't need to know any other details."

Lupin was already shaking his head, but Severus pressed on.

"If you do what I ask, I won't tell anyone about Remus. That's my price."

"What you've asked me to do—that's lying under oath, in a court of law. Do you know how serious that is?"

"Yes," said Severus tiredly.

"That's called perjury. It's a _crime,_ Sev—Mr. Snape. You do understand that, don't you?"

"Well, that's why I'm not doing it myself, see," said Severus coldly.

"But you can't ask me to commit a crime!" Lupin shook his head furiously. "Do you know what the consequences would be if I were caught? Do you understand I would go to _prison_? My wife's not a witch, she can't keep Remus enclosed—they would take him away, put him in an institution—"

"You won't get caught," said Severus. "They won't look twice at a person like you. You were the one who said you had a good reputation and connections."

"That has nothing to do with lying under oath," Lupin insisted. He ran his fingers through his hair shakily, and a gelled lock came loose. "Not to mention potentially freeing a violent criminal."

"He's not on trial for a violent crime," Severus said, though deep down, he wasn't sure. They never shared all that much information with the young recruits, and Severus wasn't fully in yet; this was his entrance ticket.

"This is absurd," Lupin said. "This—you can't be serious."

"I find it difficult," Severus began slowly, "to believe you are truly shocked and horrified by the prospect of lying under oath when the near-murder of a student at the hands of your monstrous werewolf is a mere...technicality to you."

"It is not a technicality," whispered Lupin, whose veener of authority was melting into an almost cartoonish tragedy mask. "I promise..."

"You asked what I wanted for my silence." Severus stared into the fire, now burning low. "This is what I want."

"Who is this man to you? Why are your protecting him?"

"It's of no relevance to you."

Lupin's eyes narrowed and his hand twitched briefly, as if to reach for his wand. In response, Severus's fingers flicked to the tiny pocket inside his sleeve, only to find his wand gone, for Dumbledore had confiscated it, along with Potter's. He wondered whether Potter had gotten his wand back yet, but of course he had—he was James Potter, after all.

At last: "You don't know him," said Lupin flatly.

"As I said, it's none of your concern."

"You don't even know what he's accused of," Lupin continued. His wedding ring flashed with golden light when he smoothed out his handkerchief. "This is—you have to do this, don't you?"

"I don't _have_ to do anything, Mr. Lupin," sneered Severus, but it was a weak sneer, a half-hearted sneer, and they both knew it.

"I think you do." Lupin lowered his chin and looked up at Severus over the lenses of his glasses. "I think you've been told to do this, and you don't know why."

"Either you agree to testify," said Severus with every remaining ounce of calm he possessed, "or I will write to the _Daily Prophet_ and tell them a werewolf is attending Hogwarts. And I have proof."

"How are they forcing you?" asked Lupin. "What have they threatened you with?" But his face was twitching with badly hidden emotion, and Severus knew he was closing in, he was almost losing his cool...

"It is _me_ that is threatening _you_. And you know it is within my power—"

"They're affiliated with something Dark, aren't they?" growled Lupin. "They're going to harm you...or reward you?"

"I don't have time for this," hissed Severus, and he stood up, his chair screeching backwards. "Give me an answer. Yes or no."

Lupin's face was contorted with anger. "This is blackmail!" he insisted. "Surely you are old enough to understand that blackmail is a crime, punishable by—"

"Yes. Or. No."

Lupin stood up and strode over to Severus, much closer than Severus would have liked, and though he was only an inch or two taller, the man seemed to tower over him, and it was only at this distance that Severus could see his eyes were different than Remus's: shifting between gold, caramel and mahogany as the fire flickered, not mild and blue like his son's. Severus could smell his breath, count the network of creases in around his mouth and across his forehead.

"Allow me to make myself clear," whispered Lupin. "Blackmail is a crime punishable by imprisonment in Azkaban. As is perjury. You are committing one crime in the hopes of persuading me to commit another. To clarify, if I were to perjure myself on your instruction, you could also be held criminally responsible for conspiracy to commit a crime, along with blackmail."

"Except that I'm a minor," said Severus silkily. "And you're an adult."

"Correct. And if you _were_ an adult—" at this, Lupin patted the wand in his breast pocket—"I would not have shown you even half the patience and indulgence you have benefitted from tonight. I would have obliviated you hours ago, and not looked back."

"You're trying _my_ patience," hissed Severus, stepping away from Lupin. "I made you an offer. You wanted to know my price, and I told you."

Lupin breathed sharply, closed his eyes, and then exhaled a slow, shaky breath. Severus watched him wipe his palms on his robes and clasp his hands together. There was something in his mannerisms that reminded him of Eileen, wiping her dirty hands on her apron, her brows knit tightly as she leaned against the counter. The beads of sweat on her hairline, the dim kitchen light sharpening every wrinkle, and the hollows beneath her eyes. Severus was so, so very tired.

Finally, Lupin murmured, "How can I trust you? Even if I do as you ask—which I'm not sure I can—even if I did testify, what's to stop you—"

"Nothing," interrupted Severus. He shrugged. "But what choice do you have?" He fixed Lupin with a cool stare. "Unless you're willing to cut your losses on Remus. No one rational would hold it against you."

Lupin shook his head sadly. "I can't," he said, looking up into the darkness of the ceiling. "I have to..." he trailed off.

Severus swallowed, and upon realizing that his fists were clenched, he relaxed them. "I'll send you further details when the time comes," he said neutrally.

Lupin said nothing. He picked up his folio and closed it, holding it tightly to his chest.

"Are we done here?" asked Severus.

Lupin looked away, towards the wall where the invisible door had formed and disappeared. "I suppose so," he said somberly. "We will have to wait for the headmaster to let us out."

He paused for a long time, while Severus watched the shadow of the hearth's grille wave about on the flagstones. Finally, Lupin murmured, "I hope it's understood that I would only ever do this for my son."

Severus returned to his chair and sat down, leaning forward and resting his heavy head on his heads, elbows on his knees. When he bent over, the world spun, and his vision went black for a moment before the darkness dissipated into the dim, grainy scene before him. The glowing embers traced the man before him in shades of carmine. Lupin was now covering his eyes with his hands. It wasn't sympathy Severus felt, and it wasn't remorse, but there was something smouldering in the hollow of his stomach and it burned like a gas lamp, and it burned like the friction of rope, and it burned, and it burned.

* * *

Professor Snape refused to wear reading glasses, so he had to squint at the letter before him. It was written in neatly slanting cursive, each _i_ dotted and _t_ crossed with an accountant's precision. The sheet was dog-eared, and the fold marks were bumpy, like scar tissue.

_26 June, 1976_

_Dear Mr. Snape,_

_I am writing to inform you that I have fulfilled the terms of our agreement. You may confirm this with others who attended the trial, though I am sure you have been notified as to my involvement. There is no need to bring up this matter again, and for the sake of my reputation and safety, as well as yours, I feel it best that we not address this topic again. Please do not mention my name or my son's name to your associates. Respectfully, I ask that you honour the terms of our agreement by preserving my son's privacy and leaving the events that transpired last February in the past. Once again, I apologize for the terrible ordeal which you were subjected to. My son has agreed to take additional precautions to ensure that there will be no repeat of that incident._

_Over the past few months, I have reflected on our conversation, and the initial offer I made you. I now understand that, perhaps, you were forced to come to a decision far too soon. I would have preferred that you were allowed to sleep on it, and take some time to ponder. I know that you had just undergone a terrible ordeal and it was not the right moment for me to bring up such abstract notions about your future and your career. That is why, despite your rejection of my offer, and in spite of some of the bad blood that passed between us, I want you to know that I am still willing to help you in obtaining an internship or apprenticeship, or even some work in my field. If you are still uncomfortable working with me, I may be able to pass along your name to some of my friends and colleagues. Mr. Snape, I offer you this opportunity not as a form of quid pro quo, but because I believe you to be a talented and intelligent young man whose gifts have been misdirected. Headmaster Dumbledore sang your praises as a spell caster and potioneer, and even said that your researching skills were well above par. Believe me, there is a need for wizards like you in this world, whatever your background may be. It isn't my business to pry; it's just that, as a father, it pains me to think of a young boy, the same as my son, who might not live up to his potential._

Snape turned the page over with a dry fingertip. The backside of the parchment was filled with tense handwriting and the occasional ink blot.

_Our world is getting darker by the day. I hope you will decide you would rather live in the light. Adolescence is a difficult time for any young person, but Hogwarts can be an especially brutal environment, especially for those who do not descend from wealth and pure blood. Just know that these years that seem to last forever end are only a tiny portion of your whole life. Soon, you will be a graduate, and free to become any person you want to be—no matter what you've done or who you've been at Hogwarts. Don't settle for traps set for you by those who would take advantage of you and discard you when they're finished. Change is hard, but it is exponentially easier to do while you are still young. Don't wait until you've made choices that will weigh on your conscience forever. I am asking you that as someone who knows from personal experience._

_Keep this letter. You may write to me at any time: two days from now, two weeks from now, two years. Any time. If you include any sensitive information, be sure to cast an encryption charm. The key word shall be the form you saw my Patronus take. I hope that one day, you will learn to cast a Patronus and its form will remind you of the person you love most. I didn't meet her until long after I finished school. Even a person like me, who barely deserves that kind of happiness, can find it. Don't let those cultists and charlatans ruin your life; they can't know you. They don't know who you might become on day, when your conscience is unburdened and you are free._

_Yours truly,_

_Lyall Lupin_

His eyes travelled over the letter, searching the loops and crosses before settling on the word _free **.**_ There it was, like a shiny stone at the bottom of a well. He pressed his forehead against the cool window, leaving an oily smudge on the glass. In the flicker of broomsticks speeding past his window, he saw the tongues of flame he'd stared into on that night eighteen years before. Red and orange and blue, flashes of wood. It wasn't the night he lost her, nor was it the last chance he had had to turn back. There had been many such chances. Some were explicitly offered, but most were just mundane moments: spoken words or silences, spells that might or might not have been cast Every day, a thousand little choices and yet, he'd never felt like he was making any choice at all....not back when he used to eat lunch at the far end of the Slytherin table with a baggy cardigan protecting his precious notes, and when the late-afternoon sun used to stream through the diamond-paned windows of the library, lighting up shag cuts and pageboys and sideburns, so many silhouettes glowing like Chinese lanterns across the study desks, and there were initials carved into every desk, and he had sliced a blood droplet and a crown into a bookshelf in the restricted section.

(She had seen him do it from across the aisle. There was a stack of books in her hands. She asked to see what he'd carved, and her hair was like cherry wood, and when she pressed her fingers into the crown-shaped indentation, he felt it like fingernails in an open wound.)

Snape had never replied to the letter. Lupin (senior) was not a member of the Order, nor did he involve himself in politics or in the world of potioneering. When James and Lily Potter died, Snape stood at the far end of the graveyard, avoiding the church, sheltered from grieving and furious eyes by an airtight Disillusionment Charm and a hooded cloak. He did not see Lupin sharing an umbrella with Remus as they exited the church with their heads down. In fact, he never saw nor spoke to Lyall Lupin again. But he did keep the letter, tucked safely into Shivani's magnum opus.

* * *

When their eyes met, Snape was jolted by his own mirror reflection. Harry's terror swam on the surface of his glasses, though they were smudged and grimy as the shack floor. Big, owlish eyes, deep green like summer lawns, like running through the sprinkler with your bare feet. Like a boy and a girl up in a tree play-dueling with twigs, and the canopy above them always, eternally green. It was the first time their paths would ever cross as equals, and both knew it would be the last such time in this world.

 _You've travelled long and your load is heavy_ , whispered the gentle female voice in his soul. _Lay down your weary head_.

It was time for Harry to do an impossibly kind thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: In Search of Mythical Kings continues to be in progress, and is NOT abandoned.


End file.
